CHICAGO, IL (December 3, 2010) – Medical personnel still are needed for an Evangelical Covenant Church mission team that will travel to Haiti January 9-23.

Physicians, registered nurses, and paramedics with emergency medical care and international experience are preferred.

Kathy and Calla Holmgren, the wife and daughter of Cleveland Browns President Mike Holmgren, will lead the trip, which Covenant World Relief is sponsoring in conjunction with Medical Teams International (MTI). Kathy is a nurse and serves on the MTI board. Calla is an obstetrician.

Most of the work will be done in Port-au-Prince, where the cholera outbreak has intensified the need for the trip. “The situation within Port-au-Prince is escalating,” reports Ted Steinhauer, country director for Medical Teams International.

“We are finding bodies in the streets, particularly by the waterfront, and in densely populated areas,” said Steinhauer. “There are now full-time vehicles combing the streets to pick up bodies and bury them in mass graves. I don’t know how many, but enough to cause great concern.”

Medical teams are being overwhelmed with cases and are struggling to care for all the incoming patients, he says. Supplies also are desperately needed.

A physician in one community, pleading for assistance said, “The recently expanded hangar is already filled, and the patients can do nothing but cry out in fear and pain.”

In addition to the trip co-sponsored by the Covenant, MTI is seeking medical personnel to help with other teams.

Covenant World Relief has continued to send additional funds to MTI to help with the crisis. David Husby, executive director of Covenant World Relief, noted that Medical Teams International has been a key partner in Haiti.

MTI has partnered with Covenant ministries elsewhere. Kathy and Calla traveled on a 2006 medical mission trip to Congo that was co-sponsored by the Paul Carlson Partnership in 2006.

Medical professionals who attend Evangelical Covenant churches and are interested in participating should email Husby or Chrissy Palmerlee or call CWR offices at 773-907-3301.