FedEx Helps Make the Impossible Possible

Rebecca Milner, International Medical Corps

International Medical Corps dreamt of the perfect solution to help injured disaster survivors — a portable, rapidly deployable, fully functional hospital. Rebecca Milner explains how FedEx helped to make the impossible possible.

“After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, International Medical Corps maintained a 60-bed portable field hospital in Boise, Idaho, ready to deploy for the largest natural disasters. But a disaster of the magnitude of the Haiti earthquake hasn’t occurred again.

We knew that we could use the hospital to save lives and treat injuries in smaller scale emergencies. We needed the right collaborator to help us develop a more flexible and easily deployable version of the hospital.

What we needed was a way to deploy the hospital to meet specific on-the-ground needs, with a smaller number of beds. FedEx was the natural place to turn. Their speed and expertise is a backbone of the disaster response community time and again.

Around twelve FedEx logistics experts have offered their services. They helped us figure out how to make the hospital more modular, for easier transport, and recommended moving it to Memphis, Tennessee for quick access to the FedEx world hub. From there, FedEx will deploy all or part of the hospital for us in its aircraft and be on the ground as soon as humanly possible, saving lives.

There are more than 65 million people displaced in the world — the highest number since WWII. Natural disasters are occurring more frequently and affecting more people, and conflicts are a daily reality.

At a time when logistics expertise is absolutely critical, FedEx is helping International Medical Corps be there for even more people when they need it most.”

To learn more about citizenship efforts at FedEx, visit csr.fedex.com to view the 2017 Global Citizenship Report. Highlights from the collaboration between FedEx and International Medical Corps include:

• Since 1984, International Medical Corps has helped tens of millions of vulnerable people in over 70 countries, delivering emergency relief and training.
• The 60-bed mobile trauma and surgery facility, which FedEx will transport to disaster zones can provide 300 surgeries and 6,000 outpatient consultations per month, when fully staffed.