$20m Medical Infrastructure Project (Benghazi, Libya)

In 2011-12, Perim Associates (then “Avicenna”) devised a plan to augment emergency medicine capacity in post-revolution Benghazi. We initially made contact with Benghazi Medical Center, the largest tertiary care medical center in Libya’s East, and pitched the program to several major U.S. medical centers. Ultimately we brought a team from Harvard’s Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Brigham & Women’s Hospital (MGH) to Benghazi. Over the course of several months and under difficult conditions we facilitated a 20 m USD Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between these institutions to provide long-term emergency medicine training, facilities upgrade and management support. Former U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens saw the program as a critical piece of U.S. support for post-war Libya and was supported in its early stages by a grant from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli. The MOU was signed a day before the attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi. Implementation of the program has been put on hold since. We subsequently have worked with the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) to provide emergency care training and telemedicine support to Libya.