About Medical Teams International
Since 1979, Medical Teams International (Medical Teams) has provided life-saving medical care for people in crisis in more than 58 countries, building resilient, healthy populations. Since 2020, humanitarian interventions have primarily focused on responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuring access to quality essential health services for refugees. Medical Teams currently operates in the following countries with active Health Clusters: Colombia, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Sudan and regularly collaborates with other health cluster partners including USAID/BHA, USBPRM, UNHCR, WFP, UNICEF, UNFPA, WHO and IOM.
Medical Teams International in action
Medical Teams began operating in Colombia in 2019 launching health programs focused on community health interventions and clinical care referrals for Venezuelan migrants in Santa Marta, Magdalena Department. In 2020 Medical Teams became a partner of the Colombia Health Cluster.
Colombia hosts the largest population of Venezuelans, with an estimated 2.45 million Venezuelan migrants and 980,000 Colombian returnees with dual citizenship, according to the 2022 Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan (RMRP). Medical Teams' humanitarian response in Colombia focuses primarily on the health needs of vulnerable Colombians and Venezuelan migrants, particularly women and children.
With the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, interventions were modified to include COVID-19 outbreak prevention. Since January 2021, Medical Teams programs have provided health education and subsidized health services to 20,951 people in three cities - Santa Marta, Tunja and Ciénaga. With support from the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (USBPRM), Barranquilla, Bucaramanga, and Bogota were added as targeted areas in January 2022. Medical Teams programs aim to reduce morbidity and mortality and improve access to primary health care services, sexual and reproductive health, and maternal, newborn and child health.
To strengthen local health systems, Medical Teams partners with local health care providers, conducts training, and subsidizes clinical care for migrants through a type of voucher system. This builds local capacity to respond to the health needs of vulnerable groups such as Venezuelan refugees and migrants, and supports Colombia's health system, which is overburdened by the influx of migrants and the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the beforementioned six cities in Colombia, Medical Teams works through a network of 104 community health volunteers (CHVs) identified from targeted neighborhoods and deployed within those communities to provide household and community level interventions. The volunteers focus on public health education and risk prevention, linking Venezuelan migrants, Colombian returnees, and vulnerable Colombian host communities with existing health facilities collaborating with Medical Teams to provide subsidized and free health care.
Through these volunteers, Medical Teams beneficiaries receive subsidized health services including medications, vouchers and supplies related to COVID-19, and educational sessions on topics such as maternal, reproductive and child health, communicable and non-communicable diseases, and information about health and immunization services.
Medical Teams ensures that health promotion materials and trainings comply with Colombian Ministry of Health guidelines, coordinates with local health authorities, and presents or discusses CHWs' activities at Health Cluster meetings.
‘We Are Not Alone’: Collaborations to succeed
One of Medical Teams' core values is to collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders to coordinate and jointly deliver services to beneficiaries, through partnership with the Health Cluster and the Maternal, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Child and Adolescent Health Sub-Cluster.
"We believe in developing solutions for an ever-evolving context" says Laura Osorio, Coordinator of the Health Cluster in Colombia. "By regularly sharing their experiences from the field with other Health Cluster partners, Medical Teams has helped meet the needs of refugees and migrants in urban areas."
At the community level, Medical Teams has updated local referral pathways, an internal system that works with different levels of support for health and other sectors including sexual and gender-based violence, HIV and legal assistance, collaborating with other Health Cluster partners such as IOM, Americares, Pastoral Social, Action Against Hunger, UNHCR and Profamilia, and has also worked with other actors to further expand community health and health services for migrants and vulnerable populations.
Medical Teams is also part of the Interagency Group for Mixed Migration Flows (GIFMM for its acronym in Spanish), which coordinates the national response to the situation of Venezuelan refugees and migrants in Colombia, both at the national and local levels, and has worked with the group by providing relevant data on health assessments conducted by CHV and COVID-19 vaccination efforts.
Medical Teams Colombia has received funding from private donors, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the International Organization for Migration, and is currently implementing programs with funding from the BPRM.
Health Cluster engagement
Member (2020 - present)
Member (2019 - present)