Every year a massive team of health care volunteers travel to countries around the world to provide free medical care and life saving surgeries to people who would never have access to the team of experts.

Over the years International Medical Alliance or IMAHelps has helped over 100,000 people. But for the first time in it’s 20 year history, the Rancho Mirage based non profit has cancelled their mission. Another casualty of COVID-19.

Mission coordinator Jennifer Padilla says this news was tough, “This can’t be happening you know this feels like when we’re needed the most.”

But they quickly remembered the mission set by their founder Ines Allen.

“The heart that Ines put into IMA all these years is been to give back to humanity regardless of where we are,” says Padilla.

They saw the need right here in the valley and took action to donate their supplies of personal protective equipment they’ve collected throughout the year to our local hospitals.

“It just hit home a lot more, to be able to help our local front liners, our local E.R. staff, our local I.C.U. staff, all the nurses, everybody who’s putting their lives out there,” she says.

She too is on the front lines as an E.M.T. working in an E.R., she says the number of lives impacted when health care workers are protected from the virus can’t be measured, “You can’t put a price tag on that … we need to be protected for them, for our patients, for our families.”

She says when we look back we will see it was the effort of many united that got us through, “All of us together as one, we’ll somehow, somehow we’re going to come through this.

If you have a donation of personal protective equipment or PPE, you can contact IMAHelps coordinator Jennifer Padilla Jpadilla@imahelps.org or founder Ines Allen Ines@inesga@aol.com, they will pick it up and distribute it.

For more information on IMAHelps click here: IMAHelps

Medical Missionaries Donate PPE to Local Hospitals After Trip is Cancelled