Earlier this year. through efforts to address the needs of these suffering people. we sought to provide millions of dollars in the form of international disaster assistance. With that action the story has not ended. In fact. even today. there are American men and women laboring unselfishly in the refugee camps. Among these workers are members of a community of Roman Catholic religious women whose American motherhouse is in the Fourth Congressional District of Pennsylvania. I would like to share the story of the Medical Mission Sisters involvement in Cambodia with my fellow Americans. In the fall of 1979. the Medical Mission Sisters received an urgent plea for help from the International Rescue Committee asking for sisters to provide immediate medical assistance to the refugees of Cambodia. The first members of the Medical Mission Sisters team arrived in Bangkok. Thailand. on November 24. 1979. Since that time a total of 19 sisters15 from the United States and 4 from Hollandhave worked cooperatively with the International Rescue Committee and the International Committee of the Red Cross to provide medical relief personnel in the refugee camps of Thailand. In addition to caring for the sick and dying Cambodian people. the sisters served as field managers. directing the work of other volunteers. They were responsible for the tuberculosis and other contagious diseases ward at SaKaeo and the surgical ward at KhaIDang.
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refugee refugees