Chicago Physicians Visit Colombia to Provide Healing for Refugees Fleeing Venezuela

COLOMBIA USNS COMFORT HOSPITAL SHIP
A U.S. military doctor organizes supplies and medicine after attending patients at a school in Riohacha, Colombia, Monday, Nov. 26, 2018. The USNS Comfort is in Colombia as part of a mission to treat local residents and Venezuelas who require urgent medical attention. Fernando Vergara / AP Photo
COLOMBIA USNS COMFORT HOSPITAL SHIP
A U.S. military doctor organizes supplies and medicine after attending patients at a school in Riohacha, Colombia, Monday, Nov. 26, 2018. The USNS Comfort is in Colombia as part of a mission to treat local residents and Venezuelas who require urgent medical attention. Fernando Vergara / AP Photo

Chicago Physicians Visit Colombia to Provide Healing for Refugees Fleeing Venezuela

WBEZ brings you fact-based news and information. Sign up for our newsletters to stay up to date on the stories that matter.

By most measures, Venezuela is a failing state. Mass numbers of people have fled the country. Colombia has accepted more than a million Venezuelans in recent months. Venezuela’s collapsing economy is expected to force another million people to soon flee. MedGlobal provides on-the-ground medical relief in the world’s most difficult humanitarian crises. A MedGlobal team of physicians has just returned from Colombia. While there, they assessed Colombia’s overburdened medical system. We’ll hear about the medical challenges to our hemisphere’s biggest migrant crisis from Dr. Zaher Sahloul, a co-founder of MedGlobal. A Chicago-area critical care specialist at Advocate Christ Medical Center, Sahloul is former president of the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS). Two MedGlobal volunteers join Sahloul. Dr. John Kahler is a Chicago-area pediatrician, and a co-founder of Med Global, and Alexandra is MedGlobal’s Venezuela liaison. She’s a former deputy mayor of El Hatillo Municipality in Caracas, Venezuela.