Philippines 2016: Day 1

Sunday, January 16-17, 2016

​After months of planning, fundraising and collecting items, the team is finally off on our adventure to provide clinic services on the island of Guimaras in the Philippines. This is a return trip for a few of us as we provided services in 2013. We have a great team this year and very excited to work with everyone. Here is our team list:

• Joe - Joe is our pharmacist from Pharmasave in Woodstock. He has been on every trip! In addition to his expertise, he brings supplies and meds that are needed so badly. We could never do these trips without the support of Joe and Pharmasave.
• Anabelle and Pablo- our hosts! Anabelle and Pablo and their families have been working so hard to get ready for the team. Their island is beautiful, and we are honored to be treated like family by them and the whole community.
• Donna and John - are from Woodstock. Donna is a manager from our Tillsonburg office and has helped us all over the province. John is one of our experienced team assistants.
• Trish - is one of our Palliative eshift PSW from the Huron Perth branch. So excited to have one of our PSW join us!
• Jean - Jean has been on 33 of these trips and has so much experience. Jean is our “godmother” for these clinics and we have learned so much about organizing and how to do this
• YdaMay - is a Mississauga nurse with family/friends in the Philippines. Yda May has helped us all over the province and will be a great asset to the team.
• Jennifer and Carolyn - are two of our excellent long standing Mississauga nurses that bring years of experience to the team.
• Gloria - is our Mississauga admin team lead – great to have you with us Gloria!
• Diane - is one of our most experienced Waterloo nurses – and brought her friend with her Lorna Bartholomew – who is a pediatric nurse from St Mikes – good to have you join us, Lorna!
• Sabrina - is a Central East nurse who has been on every medical team trip – she can do everything from Pharmacy to dental assist. Sabrina has been a great help anywhere we need her in the province.
• Tiffany - is one of our nurses from North Bay – a PSW supervisor – Tiffany has come a long way to join the team and many thanks to Northern Airport Service for supporting Tiffany by giving her a ride in their airport transit!
• Margaret - is one of our experienced Central East RN’s and her partner from near Oshawa- welcome Mark!
• Lincoln – a newly retired OPP officer from Wingham – part of the support crew. Good to have you Linc.
• Lillian - is another one of our RPN’s that has helped us all over the province. Lillian is experienced with the medical team after going to Guatemala.
• Alison - is one of our RN, ET and NP from Central East. So glad you made it Alison!
• Joana - is a PSW supervisor and RPN from Toronto – an excellent nurse.
• Anne - is one of our experienced Central East nurses as well.
• Le-Anne - has been with us to Guatemala – another great nurse.
• Linda Knight (CEO) and Cal - are co leads with Anabelle – thanks to Sue Wideman for all her ground support leading up to the trip. We miss you and Maynard and Sue! It was a very long, long flight – first leg 5 hours to Vancouver, then 14 hours to Manila and then a 3 hour wait and the last leg to Iloilo- then a water taxi to our island. Sleeping sitting up is not an easy task. We have Monday to recover (we are a day ahead).

All CarePartners staff can help us for future team trips by saving the following for us to pack:
•    Hotel soaps, shampoos
•    Toothbrushes and toothpaste
•    Ball caps (for working in the hot sun)
•    Reading glasses
•    Sun glasses
If you can get these to your manager – we will collect them at the offices and ensure they make it to the team.
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We will be updating our friends, families, coworkers and our patients every day.
Thanks to everyone for your support.