The Unlikely Journey from War Zone to World Health Revolution (Ep. 3 Clip)
**Note - please excuse the typos. This transcript was automatically generated.**
Hetal Baman
Host
00:00
Hey there. It's been just about three months since I relaunched and released this podcast And I have to say that it's been such a beautiful start to this journey 17 episodes in and about 2,000 downloads already. Along the way, i'm meeting the most amazing people. Just like you. I've decided that it's now time to open up the realm of possibilities even more So. Now I'm openly telling the universe that I'm ready for the perfect partner and or sponsor to help this platform Grow and flourish even more. With your help, i can continue to serve socially conscious Organizations by growing their reach, increasing their funding and creating greater impact on the world. So let's talk. That's what this pursuit is all about, am I right? So, as a small celebration, i wanted to share a little segment of our most popular and most downloaded episode to date.
01:00
It's from episode number three with Dr Wisam Breegi, founder and CEO of Breegi Scientific, an international Boston based medical technology company founded in 2014 that developed the world's first portable digital native and low-cost infant incubator platform with a disposable housing. It's called the NiCi. In this segment, i asked Dr Breegi about the remarkable story that sparked the idea to create his very own infant incubator, designed to significantly reduce neonatal mortality and morbidity globally. He calls it the Ferrari that can drive in the desert. Are you intrigued? Keep listening.
01:45
Oh, and remember this is only a small part of the episode, so if you love it, make sure to go back and listen to episode three in full. My name is Hetal Baman and this is the global health pursuit. Okay, i Definitely want to talk about your story, because the culmination of what Breegi Scientific is kind of started. I correct me if I'm wrong, but it started way back when you had your first child, danny, and I want to ask you just to really Tell us the story of what happened, how this idea came about. I mean, it's just touching. I just want to hear from you.
Wisam Breegi
Guest
02:29
Well, it's one of those things that no parents would want to actually see. I mean, we're lucky in a way. This has happened. Actually, during the first Gulf War, i was in Iraq and My wife was in her late stage of pregnancy when the war started, and In the middle of the the war, we fled. Back then We were actually in town that we're not familiar with. We'd even probably the same story of any refugee you have when you see on TV today.
03:03
It was just horrific and I interested if I had things in my car That I was ready to deliver my baby, and of course, my wife was like no way. So I was like, okay, you know, let's forget it out. So I had to to drive and it was so dangerous. I mean, this is in the middle of bombing and explosions, and all that in an area where we were, as I said, were outside. We fled home and We were comfortable, in a sense, that half of the family doctors, the uncles, the cousins and her doctors one of the best, actually, in the country But when we fled, everything is gone. There is nothing underneath you. I mean, literally, you feel like you are in a free fall and This is not only your life. But now there is your wife and where there's, a baby is coming in. You don't know what to do.
04:08
So I find this small hospital in this small town We're in and it was literally almost abandoned. It was a skeleton of our two nurses and one doctor was. It stayed in in the hospital and They didn't have electricity for like couple months because they were. The whole first structure was bombed and It was freezing cold and we had one candle. Oh, in the hospital, literally There was one candle we had in front of us and there's a candle inside where the doctor and the nurse and I can hear my wife grilling in agony. And then the nurse came to me and she said go get me some wood. I was like what do you mean? And she said your wife is freezing and I'm worried about the baby. And I said there's no wood. I mean this is like a manicured yard outside the hospital. It was just like what are you going to find? So, anyway, so I go outside.
05:04
It was pitch dark and, as sad as it is, it was really comic because I went into a pool of concrete that I didn't see. It was so dark I literally walked through right in it and, you know, hit my head on the floor like literally laid on my back, like a cartoon, exactly, i mean in the middle of all of this, and you laugh about it years later. But I didn't pay attention to what happened to me. So I go around and I find little twigs or whatever. I go in and I pulled one of those stainless steel surgical containers with alcohol and lit a little fire. And when Danny came he was blue, literally. She called me. I look at him, i mean the kid is dark, and she said that the baby is freezing. And I'm looking around, there's incubators just lined up in the room And they were just a piece of junk And it's so frustrating that it is right next to you and you can't save your baby, so literally within half an hour, and this is anyway. So we took the baby, i run to the car, put the heat on and trying to actually get the baby in the car in the hospital to keep him warm. So it really one of those things is that even you don't know what happened to the baby, what's the effect, what really manifested from all of this.
06:28
And years later, of course, you know immediately we actually we had plans to leave the country And we were lucky. We left and, you know, came to the US and Danny grew up to be a healthy child And then, when to be you, finished pre-med then and then he decided to go public health And this whole story sometimes you try to block it from your mind. It's just so sad that one day came to me and he said that you know that there is more than 3.5 million babies died before 28 days And you don't know. Is that the incubators is a big deal out of all of this? And it's like what are you talking about? What is the 3.5 million? And said annually before 28 days. So I start digging and doing research and I'm looking at the numbers. I was like, oh my God, we were so lucky with the rest of the world. What happened to these families?
07:19
And so, being an innovator and inventor, i had some ideas actually something I was working on for bio containment space, a disposable one that you can actually do surgeries and other things without having this complicated surgical suites and all that and you can do it anyway.
07:38
So when we looked at this, i said, okay, we can actually develop an infant incubator, that it would have everything that a Cadillac of all incubators have that. We will put it in this one, but we will make it better. So we went in, broke down every single component of an incubator. What works with doesn't. Where is the problems? Electricity, infection, complicated components can't work on a solar. Can work on a battery. Can you use it for transport If there is no doctors? suddenly, or even not suddenly, you know in a war or something but in a small town and there is no specialist, can a specialist have an access to this baby immediately, look at the data, look at the baby and can actually guide the healthcare providers how to actually do this? So we looked at all of this and we start putting it together. So it became the, the Ferrari that can drive in the desert.
Hetal Baman
Host
08:40
I love that. I love that.
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