HOW CAN I HELP?
EUGENE / JUNE 10, 2020 – Sitting across from John McGhie as he sipped a half-empty glass of water, wearing a light blue pullover sweatshirt with an “International Medical Corps” embroidered logo, I couldn’t help but be struck by his unobtrusive nature. After all, this is a man who runs toward disasters as everyone else runs away from them. McGhie has worked in 64 countries and sits on advisory committees for both the World Health Organization and the United Nations. In the 72 hours before our interview, he had been asked to join a COVID-19 Task Force for the WHO. I’m not exactly sure whom I expected to be face-to-face with, but it wasn’t soft-spoken, easy-going John. “How can I help?” he asked in his smooth Scottish accent. In retrospect, I suppose McGhie asking how he could be of service is no surprise. He built a career from doing exactly that.
As International Medical Corps’ Emergency Response Director for the Middle East, Europe, and Asia, John McGhie lives his day-to-day life with the curse of knowledge. He moves through the world knowing that an overwhelming proportion of it is ill-prepared to face any kind of emergency, preventable or not. As a global leader in nonprofit emergency response, he also knows that when disaster strikes his team will likely be the first ones on the ground to help.
“There are so many places in the world that need aid. How do you prioritize?” I asked. He chuckled in response to what was obviously a loaded question, and said, “It all depends.” He went on to explain that every disaster relief scenario has a unique set of questions to address before action can be taken. What is our main priority? How many people are suffering? Where are the available resources? McGhie explained that his job is really quite straightforward: he identifies a potential problem, then works with a team to develop a plan to address it — ideally before the crisis actually occurs. “Never over-complicate things. Look at it. Look at it quite simply. It will get complicated enough all by itself.”
Data is the driving factor for McGhie and his team when deciding where and when to send relief. He is a firm believer that data should inform decisions, not dictate them, and refers to global databases that measure the fragility of countries around the world, based on economics, natural disasters, health security, food security, infrastructure, democracy, and advocacy. By comparing these indices, his team can identify the most vulnerable places and respond accordingly.
Teamwork is just as important to the organization’s deployment-decision process, because data serves only as a snapshot in time. McGhie conveyed that human communication provides insight numbers cannot. It’s easy to get stuck on a single problem working alone — but, he noted, collaboration encourages us to look at the bigger picture, think outside the box, and come up with unconventional solutions.
ON THE GROUND
When boots hit the ground, “Things need to happen quickly, or else people suffer,” McGhie said. He explained that it’s important to have gear designed to support what you’re doing — speed and simplicity included. As essential as the gear is a team of people who can ask themselves: What do I need? And now what can go wrong?
Each relief mission begins with a core team comprising International Medical Corps staff and nationals from the region receiving aid. McGhie explained that it’s important to hire local people, to break down language barriers and create economic opportunities for employed nationals, their families, and their communities. “A large amount of these countries have highly skilled people, but no chance to actually exercise that.” He followed with an example of an International Medical Corps-operated refugee camp in Jordan that is managed by six expatriates and more than 475 Jordan and Syrian nationals. “This is how we leave a legacy, while ensuring our response is appropriate and proportionate,” he explained, adding that employing locals results in communities taking ownership of their problems, empowering them to take independent action in the future.
SUPPLY CHAIN DISRUPTIONS
What does Chinese New Year have to do with International Medical Corps’ response to the 2014–2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa? Many of us may struggle to find this link, but for McGhie understanding global interconnectedness is a job requirement. He explained that most of the personal protective equipment used in the organization’s Ebola field hospitals came from China, which would shut down manufacturing while celebrating Chinese New Year. McGhie shared this example to show that demand isn’t the sole determinate in supply chain shortages, and that forward thinking and inquiry to the goods origin are important prerequisites to preparedness.
Additionally, a country’s choice to outsource production to other places that can do it cheaper has far-reaching implications in the long term. As McGhie put it, “At the time when you do need [a product], you join the queue like everyone else.” We’re hearing echoes of this experience today as the world scrambles to get enough PPE for healthcare workers caring for COVID-19 patients. Moving forward, McGhie said he anticipates some degree of global shift in the realm of production but acknowledged that humans have a bad habit of repeating history.
THE IMPORTANCE OF PREPAREDNESS
An overarching theme of my conversation with McGhie involved the shortcomings of emergency preparedness around the world — now broadly on display in the face of a global pandemic. He stressed that being underprepared isn’t a result of lacking foresight or access to information. Instead, it has to do with a resistance to putting resources toward something that many remain unutilized. “Preparedness isn’t a sexy thing. It costs money. It will appear on your bottom line, but it won’t do anything for your share value. It’s something you may need, or you might never use. You might end up disposing of it and buying it again. But it’s when you do need it — that’s when it counts.”
