Scrub drive assists health care workers in flood-ravaged SC

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Nurses and other medical personnel across Hawaii Island are combining forces to support their fellow health care workers in flood-ravaged South Carolina.

Nurses and other medical personnel across Hawaii Island are combining forces to support their fellow health care workers in flood-ravaged South Carolina.

A former emergency room nurse at North Hawaii Community Hospital who now lives in South Carolina, Meredith Gibbs, frantically emailed her former Hawaii Island colleagues asking for their assistance to provide scrubs for medical personnel caring for patients in the South Carolina disaster area. With the majority of hospitals there still without running water, even meeting the basic needs — such as providing clean scrubs to work in — is a challenge.

“I’m reaching out to the group who taught me about ohana, about taking care of your own. You are all still my ohana and I want to show my ohana here in South Carolina what ohana really means,” she wrote.

Nurses and other medical personnel from Kona Community Hospital, Hilo Medical Center, Hale Ho‘ola Hamakua, Ohana Health Care and North Hawaii Community Hospital quickly answered the call and have gathered hundreds of scrubs. The scrubs are being collected at North Hawaii Community Hospital and will be shipped off to South Carolina today.