Q&A: Direct Relief CEO Thomas Tighe on how to help Ukraine

By GLENN GAMBOA
AP Business Writer

Helping Ukrainians can generally be done by using existing aid strategies. It’s just a matter of scale and adapting to circumstances on the ground. So says Thomas Tighe, who is the president and CEO of the nonprofit humanitarian medical organization Direct Relief. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Direct Relief has provided more than 50 million doses of medication and 254 tons of medical aid to people in Ukraine and neighboring countries. Earlier this month, it launched Health 4 Ukraine. That’s a payment and distribution program that will cover 100% of prescription co-pays and 85% of non-prescription drug costs for about 400,000 Ukrainian refugees in Poland. It’s a system that was quickly developed and launched with help from Poland’s largest healthcare company.