Suburban doctor leading team to Turkey and Syria to care for earthquake victims

Dr. Zaher Sahloul was on duty at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn on Feb. 6 when he learned a massive earthquake had struck southeastern Turkey and northwestern Syria.

“To me, like many Syrian-Americans, it was very personal,” the pulmonary and critical care specialist said of the quake and subsequent aftershocks that reportedly have killed more than 46,000 people, reduced hundreds of buildings to rubble and left hundreds of thousands homeless.

Sahloul called his parents, who live about 200 miles from the Turkish border, to make sure they were OK. Then, he and fellow health care workers from MedGlobal began planning their response.

Established in 2017 and headquartered in Chicago Ridge, MedGlobal's mission is to eliminate health disparities worldwide. To that end, MedGlobal volunteers — including physicians, nurses, therapists and other health care professionals — provide humanitarian and health care support to people who've experienced natural disasters and epidemics, as well as those affected by conflict or war, industrial accidents and other man-made emergencies in regions where authority has broken down.

Sahloul, who is MedGlobal's co-founder and president, and nine other volunteers from Illinois, Texas and Michigan left Sunday for Gaziantep, a Turkish city close to the earthquake's epicenter. Among them are critical care and emergency specialists, orthopedic surgeons, a neurosurgeon, an anesthesiologist, an internist and three Baylor University psychiatrists.

In addition to expertise, the team is bringing medicine and medical supplies and equipment, including portable ultrasounds, to Syrian hospitals.

This isn't the first time the Burr Ridge resident and his colleagues have provided health care following an international crisis. MedGlobal teams have been in Ukraine for almost a year, Sahloul said. Emergency response teams have been in Syria since a civil war began there 12 years ago. They're also in war-torn Yemen and Bangladesh.

Teams have responded and continue to respond to humanitarian, refugee and migrant crises in Lebanon, Sudan, Gaza, Mexico, Ecuador and Colombia, he added.

“Our programs are focusing on emergency response and providing sustainable health care with our local partners,” Sahloul said of the 700 MedGlobal operations worldwide.

The struggles the injured in Turkey and Syria face are ongoing, Sahloul said. Those who've had surgery are at risk for infection because wound care in the wake of such disasters is often lacking. Survivors also face exposure to nature and freezing temperatures, which can lead to hypothermia and shock, especially among children, the elderly and people with chronic conditions.

Those chronic conditions may go untreated if patients cannot get the medication they need, he said. And the destruction and contamination of water resources can lead to an outbreak of diseases like cholera.

Then there is the psychological impact of the crisis, not only on survivors but also on rescue and humanitarian workers.

“One doctor mentioned he's seeing for the first time children so traumatized they cannot speak, so fearful they cannot sleep, because they fear a building will fall,” said Sahloul, who recounted the story of a youngster who survived the quake and then tried to rescue his parents by digging through the rubble with his bare hands.

Such trauma requires immediate attention, said Sahloul, and right now “there are not enough mental health and trauma specialists to provide that.”

For more information on MedGlobal, visit medglobal.org.