Marty Crittenden visits with two boys while on a 2018 trip to Kenya, where she spent a week running a pharmacy. (Courtesy/Marty Crittenden)
When Marty Crittenden received an email March 31 from International Medical Relief about an upcoming mission trip, she immediately asked her boss at Willamette Vital Health for two weeks’ time off.
The reason: an opportunity to help Ukrainian refugees in Europe, at a location undisclosed even to her employer for security reasons.
She got the greenlight, applied to join the trip with the Colorado-based nonprofit and was accepted three days later.
It’s a quick turnaround for Crittenden, a nurse manager at Willamette Vital Health in Salem, as she prepares to board a flight Friday to eastern Europe.
She’ll spend two weeks there with ten medical professionals, including doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, a women’s health care provider and a dentist from across the U.S. They will operate a clinic, provide mental health support and food for Ukrainian refuges. They also hope to provide relief for local care providers already treating refugees in clinics who are working 24 hours a day.
Crittenden, 61, said she is excited to get to help Ukrainians “in a small way” but is nervous of the reality that they can only provide care for so many among millions of refugees during a humanitarian disaster.
“It’s hard because we can’t offer a cure for what’s happening. We’re only able to support,” she said.
It won’t be Crittenden’s first time going overseas with International Medical Relief. She traveled in 2018 to Kenya where she spent a week running a pharmacy.
Crittenden said her career path and knack for humanitarian aid were both influenced by her late parents. Her mother was a nurse, and her father worked on the U.S.S. Hope – a hospital ship run by Project Hope – in the 1960s on a voyage to Sri Lanka, then known as Ceylon.
“I saw the joy for him of what he did,” she said. “Fifty years later, I could still repeat his stories that he shared about that experience.”
Crittenden completed a food service program at Portland Community College in the 1980s and spent five years working in the food industry, but changed course after she was diagnosed with kidney disease and had to undergo chemotherapy. “I re-evaluated my life and the things that I wanted to do,” she said.
Crittenden said she had always wanted to be a nurse but never pursued it, and she took inspiration from the “exceptional” physician who treated her at Kaiser Permanente, Susan Kaufman. “I guess I wanted to be like her,” she said.
She went into remission after a year and enrolled in prerequisite courses at PCC for nursing school.
Crittenden attended Linfield University’s nursing school and graduated in 1997. She balanced being a student with working at working at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital as a certified nursing assistant and later a nurse at until 2001. While at Doernbecher, she also worked with HIV positive adults at Our House of Portland. She then spent 15 years at Kaiser Permanente working as a pediatric oncology nurse.
She joined Willamette Vital Health – formerly Willamette Valley Hospice – in 2019 as a hospice nurse and eventually took her current position as a nursing manager for the supportive care program, treating patients with serious illnesses.
Executive Director Iria Nishimura said Crittenden asked for her blessing to go to Europe at a time when the nonprofit is already short staffed.
“But when someone says that they need to go and help the Ukrainian refugees, you find a way to make it possible,” Nishimura said.
Crittenden said her trip in total will cost around $6,500, half of which is sponsored by her brother and coworkers.
When word got around to other staff about Crittenden’s plans, they started coming into work bearing supplies.
Crayons, playing cards, bracelets, silly putty, band aids, razors, earplugs, glasses, baby rattles, diapers, denture care products, anti-itch medication, antibiotic ointment, Vaseline and Pepto Bismol were just a few of the items Crittenden said her colleagues pulled together for her trip – and lots of each.
“This is going to be a huge need for years to come,” she said.
Crittenden said a ground crew is already in Europe determining the safest areas they can go and where the need for aid is greatest, and she will fly there by herself Friday to meet the group.
United Nations data showed more than 4.5 million people have fled Ukraine as of Thursday. Russian soldiers also continue to face accusations of raping Ukrainian women, according to reporting from the New York Times, which prompted UN officials on Thursday to issue a statement calling for a “rigorous investigation” into the allegations.
Crittenden said some of those women may be among the patients her team treats in Europe, providing gynecological care as well as trauma support.
As a Jewish person, she said she is motivated by the stories she heard from her grandfather, who was from Ukraine and showed her pictures of their family members who died in the Holocaust.
“Part of the problem with what happened during World War II is that people kept their head in the ground and didn’t actively do anything to help the people, and I don’t want to see a repeat of that,” she said.
People can donate International Medical Relief on the nonprofit’s website.
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Crittenden joined Willamette Valley Health as a hospice nurse, not a hospital nurse. Salem Reporter regrets the error.
Contact reporter Ardeshir Tabrizian: [email protected] or 503-929-3053.
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