Local doctors home for Thanksgiving after helping in Puerto Rico

They treated over a 100 patients a day.

A team of local doctors is home for Thanksgiving, after spending some time in Puerto Rico. They were there helping to treat patients after the September hurricane.

‘It was our desire to go out and help others,’ says Dr. Warren Volker, with DaVita Medical Group. ‘That’s just how our community is.’

Dr. Volker says he was in the middle of gathering his team and supplies, when the 1 October shooting happened. They made the decision to stay in Las Vegas, to make sure their own community’s medical needs were met, before making their way to Puerto Rico.

The team set up a pop-up medical clinic, just outside of San Juan. They treated over a hundred patients a day, with anything from dehydration, to broken bones, to heart failure. Some patients walked hours just to be treated.

Dr. Volker says home for the holidays has a new meaning this year, when so many people he treated had no home to go back to.

‘Their homes are basically destroyed,’ says Dr. Volker. ‘There are partial rooms open, but they’re taking debris from the streets to try to rebuild their homes.’

Dr. Volker and his team hope to return to Puerto Rico in the next few weeks. If you’d like to help them collect donations or supplies, you can visit their website.