Photo By Maj. Joseph Simms | Major Vashun Rodriguez, a flight surgeon assigned to the 927th Aeromedical Staging...... read more read more
Major Vashun Rodriguez, a flight surgeon assigned to the 927th Aeromedical Staging Squadron, MacDill Air Force Base Florida, along with a joint and multinational contingent of Reservists, wrapped up Arctic Care 2018, an Innovative Readiness Training Exercise based out of Kotzebue, Alaska, April 27, 2018.
Rodriguez, a traditional reservist that also serves as an emergency room doctor at Tampa General Hospital, was one of a cross-section of Reserve medical professionals who provided medical, dental, optometry and veterinary care for 12 villages in the Maniillaq Service Area of Northwestern Alaska during the exercise.
To reach his assigned village, Rodriguez and his team boarded a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter for a 45-minute flight and worked out of a small clinic before flying to another village several days later. During his time in each community, Rodriguez saw patients with ailments ranging from strep throat to broken bones.
“We flew into a remote village, 83 miles above the Arctic Circle, named Kivalina, where there typically is no provider throughout the year,” said Rodriguez. “If a resident has an issue that is too advanced for the medical staff here, they would call the nearest medical facility which is in Kotzebue 77 miles away, and the provider will decide if the condition is serious enough to require the patient to be transported to a larger facility.”
The entire region serviced by Arctic Care 2018 covers an area approximately the size of Illinois. Kivalina, like most of the villages in the region, is not accessible by car or truck. The only way to transport patients out or medical professionals in is by sea or air, which can be very expensive.
Each village has a community clinic staffed with health aids and practitioners that have very little medical training. Higher level providers for eye, dental, and women’s health care are based in Kotzebue. Each year, providers are typically able to visit the larger villages in the region four times a year, and the smaller villages like Kivalina twice a year, leaving many of these village’s needs unmet.
Serving remote areas such as the Northwest Arctic Borough is the hallmark of IRT exercises. It not only provides a service to U.S. citizens, it enhances the capabilities of our military medical professionals and provides an opportunity to positively impact patient’s lives, according to Rodriguez.
“I think our presence here has made a positive impact on the communities by providing care the residents otherwise may not have been able to afford,” according to Rodriguez. “It is also reassuring for the residents to know that someone with a medical license can see them and evaluate them here rather than at another clinic.”
During his time in Kivalina, Rodriguez saw over 20 percent of the village’s total population equating to thousands of dollars in medical costs the patients didn’t have to incur. While the benefit to having Rodriquez and his team visit Kivalina was significant for the town, Rodriguez was also left with a strong sense of how this community operates in the remote Alaskan wilderness.
“I found the people here to be very self-sufficient. If there is a whale sighting the kids are taken out of school with the men of the village to learn how to hunt and provide for their families. This adds to the communal sense of family when you live in a village like Kivalina,” he said. “It really says a lot when a community is able to survive on its own without many resources and under such extreme weather conditions.”
The Northwest Arctic Borough has hosted IRT exercises in the past, most recently in 2015, and will plan to continue to do so for years to come. Until the day that each village is self-sufficient, the villages that make up the Northwest Arctic Borough will continue to rely on Arctic Care and Reservists from all branches to help fill in the gaps where the Maniilaq Association cannot.
| Date Taken: | 04.23.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 04.23.2018 15:12 |
| Story ID: | 274147 |
| Location: | KIVALINA, ALASKA, US |
| Web Views: | 113 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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