International Medical Corps

International Medical Corps (known also as IMC) is a global humanitarian nonprofit organization established by volunteer doctors and nurses. The organization provides disaster relief, delivers health care to underserved regions, builds clinics, and trains local health care workers with the goal of creating self-reliant, self-sustaining medical services and infrastructure in places where that had previously been lacking.

IMC's focuses include primary and secondary health care, prevention and treatment of infectious diseases such as malaria, cholera, dysentery, and HIV/AIDS, supplemental food for malnourished children, clean water and hygiene education, mental health and psychosocial care, and microfinance programs that allow people to earn their own income.

International Medical Corps is a founding member of the ONE Campaign and a member of the Clinton Global Initiative.

History

In the early 1980s, a young emergency-room physician at UCLA Medical Center, Dr. Robert Simon, read a report about the plight of the Afghan people following the 1979 Soviet invasion and occupation. All but 200 of the country’s 1,500 doctors had been executed, imprisoned, or exiled, and relief agencies had been ordered out of the country. He felt he had to do something to help.

Dr. Simon began making trips to Afghanistan to provide medical assistance directly to civilians, eventually selling his home to finance a clinic in the battered Kunar River Valley. Eventually, understanding that a few new clinics would not meet the overwhelming health care needs of Afghans, Simon set up a full-time Afghan medic training center in the nearby Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan.

At the end of one nine-month course, the Afghan medics trained by International Medical Corps were able to diagnose and treat 75-80 percent of the injuries and illnesses they encountered in the field. By 1990, International Medical Corps had graduated more than 200 medics who helped established 57 clinics and 10 hospitals in 18 provinces throughout rural Afghanistan.

By emphasizing training and the importance of returning disaster-affected communities to self-reliance, IMC pushed the international community to expand its definition of relief work.

Countries/Regions where IMC is active

IMC works around the world responding to disasters and crises as they occur for a list of the countries where they currently have programs, visit the [http://www.imcworldwide.org/section/work "Where We Work"] section of their website.

Recent Programmatic Initiatives

Kenya Crisis: IMC is currently responding to the post-election humanitarian crisis in Kenya by sending mobile clinics to "spontaneous settlements" where displaced people have congregated. [http://www.imcworldwide.org/microsites/kenya_crisis/kenya1.html IMC's Kenya Crisis page with link to press release and support material]

Leadership

Nancy Aossey, International Medical Corps’ president and CEO, has led the organization since 1986 and has overseen IMC's expansion to include more than 40 countries. Ms. Aossey has served as Chairman of the Board of InterAction, America's largest coalition of international relief organizations, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Dr. Robert Simon, M.D., together with a group of American volunteer physicians and nurses, founded International Medical Corps in 1984. Dr. Simon, Interim Bureau Chief of the Cook County Bureau of Health Services in Chicago, Illinois, serves as IMC's Chairman of the Board. He is also professor and executive chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Cook County Hospital/Rush University.

External links

* [http://imcworldwide.org/ International Medical Corps] - Official site