Waveland, MS, November 28, 2005 --(
PR.com)-- Today, in Hancock County, Mississippi, the county most devastated by Hurricane Katrina, Mississippi’s Forgotten is opening its first free medical clinic. The clinic is to be the Bradley Stone Waveland Clinic, named in honor of Brad Stone, a pre-medical student from Harvard, who, with the help of other out-of-state volunteers, set up a medical clinic in a parking lot that was active for almost three months, saw over 5000 patients and provide basic healthcare that was nowhere else available. Mr. Stone noted “Over half of our patients were in the throes of a worsening of their chronic diseases – such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and kidney disease. Mississippi, especially Hancock County, has become, overnight, a third world country where easily treatable disease have become killers because of lack of access to basic health care and basic medications.”
In addition, treated at the clinic were patients with conditions such as a traumatic amputation of a leg from a chain saw, other traumatic injuries suffered as a result of cleaning up debris and acute infections such as sinusitis and pneumonia. Elizabeth Gallup, MD JD MBA, founder and CEO of Mississippi’s Forgotten who herself has seen over 2000 patients from her vehicle since her arrival in early September said “right after the storm there was particulate debris in the air and all the standing water was contaminated. The particulate debris clogged up nasal and sinus passages resulting in sinusitis, which in some individuals developed into bronchitis and pneumonia. Unfortunately, the germs down here are tremendous and do not respond to antibiotics typically used in non-disaster settings; we have had to resort to high cost, broad spectrum antibiotics – however – these donated antibiotics have saved many lives.”
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