Introduction

Medical Mission to Dajabon, Dominican Republic February 27 - March 7, 2010.

Dajabon is located on the Haitian border 80 miles northeast of Port-au-Prince. Many displaced and injured people have made their way to Dajabon. In addition to our usual mission of helping the people of Dajabon, Waves of Health will be assisting with the earthquake relief effort. We will help resupply the Ramon Matias Mella hospital in Dajabon which has been treating Haitian victims. We are also planning to bring supplies and assistance to a clinic across the border in Quanaminthe, Haiti.

The Waves of Health Organization invites you to the first Annual medical Mission Benefit Dinner humanitarian Award Recipient, Maria Suarez, RN Saturday, February 6, 2010. Click here for details.

Waves of Health is a nonprofit 501 (c) (3) organization dedicated to helping bring modern medical care to developing communities. Waves of Health started as an idea of Dr. Clayton Everline, and organized by Dr. Suraj Saggar, Dr. Kate Hanify, Dr.Humberto Jimenez and Dr. Chris Boni in 2007.

Dr. Everline was in his last year of residency in Internal Medicine at Saint Michael’s Medical Center in Newark NJ, when he began to think about bringing medical care to underserved areas. Dr. Everline had studied and traveled in the Caribbean and had been bothered by the poor medical care in many communities. He wanted to help the less fortunate people he had known. He consulted with Monsignor Manuel Cruz who encouraged Dr. Everline to pursue his dream and offered to help.

Father Cruz had worked with Nuns who operated a small clinic in a rural town in the Dominican Republic. He contacted them and asked if they needed any help. The Sisters of the Heart of Jesus invited Dr. Everline to go to the Dominican Republic to work in their clinic and nursing home. Dr. Everline was excited about going by himself, but knew that he wanted to do more. He had a dream of bringing teams of doctors and an entire pharmacy to underserved areas.

Dr. Everline then started to talk to other doctors at Saint Michael’s medical center. He quickly had partners in his mission. One of the first to join was Humberto Jimenez, PharmD. Dr. Jimenez is a clinical pharmacist whose family is from the Dominican Republic. He was interested in bringing needed medications to lesser served areas of the Dominican Republic. Infectious disease fellow Dr. Suraj Saggar was especially interested in the project because of the tropical location. Medical resident Dr. Kate Hanify had won the hospital’s Humanitarian of the year award so she immediately agreed to help. Attending physician Dr. Chris Boni completed the team.

The first project of Waves of Health was the mission to Sabana Grande de Boya March 1-14, 2007. In addition to medicines purchased in the Dominican Republic, the group brought 17 duffel bags of medications to the small clinic. The four doctors treated hundreds of patients. Marlene Peña, EMT, assisted with triage and translation and Robert A. Cumins, Documentary Photographer, photographed the visit to the Dominican Republic.

The Waves of Health team also did some outreach work while in the Dominican Republic in 2007. They spent a few days going to small undeveloped work camps called Batays.

Waves of Health is a non-profit organization formed in 2007. The mission of Waves of Health is to provide modern medical care to underserved communities in the developing world and to educate health care professionals about health problems in underserved communities in the developing world. Additionally, having been founded by surfing physicians, the organization also has a focus on surfers’ health and sports medicine. Waves of Health shares goals with the Surfers’ Medical Association (SMA) and other surf related nonprofit organizations including. Click here for more details.

Waves of Health continues to provide primary medical care and supplies to under served communities. Waves of Health's various projects are funded by private and corporate donations.