HOPE Volunteers Join Pacific Partnership 2017

Medical volunteers from Project HOPE have joined Pacific Partnership 2017, the 12th annual humanitarian aid mission and disaster response exercise led by the U.S. Navy to the Asia Pacific Region. Project HOPE is the only health care NGO on this year’s land-based mission in Vietnam. Eleven HOPE volunteers will implement side-by-side training to local health care professionals and provide patient care.

This year’s HOPE team consists of physicians, a physician’s assistant, registered nurses and a director of pharmacy. Specialized training includes palliative care, infection control, burn care and advanced cardiac life support.

The purpose of Pacific Partnership is to bring a group of partner nations and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) together to prepare in a time of calm so that they will be ready to respond if and when a natural disaster does occur. At the same time the host countries benefit from humanitarian aid in the form of engineering projects and health care instruction, trainings and care.

Pacific Partnership began in 2005 in response to the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami which devastated parts of Southeast Asia. Project HOPE medical volunteers joined the U.S. Navy aboard the USNS Mercy on that mission providing surgeries and other medical care to people affected by the disaster. The U.S. Navy and Project HOPE volunteers returned to the region in the summer of 2006 and every summer since for the annual Pacific Partnership missions.