HOUSTON -- The killer tsunamis are hitting close to home for a local doctor who returned from Thailand a couple of months ago comma and a nonprofit organization with surplus medical supplies.

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Dr. Palmer Beasley, an epidemiologist at The University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston, prepared this week to go back to a very different country on a medical mission with a local organization that might need help from Houstonians.

Volunteers are sorting through and packing up medical supplies -- from baby formula to syringes -- headed to Sri Lanka, a country desperate for help after tsunamis plowed over south Asia's coast.

"It's so overwhelming for us to imagine what they're going through," said Dr. Patricia Brock, founder of Medical Bridges, a Houston-based nonprofit organization that serves as a clearinghouse for surplus medical supplies.

"We helped out with Hurricane Mitch, with earthquakes and monsoons in India, but nothing of this magnitude ... with the number of deaths and countries involved," Brock said.

So far, volunteers have packed about 300 boxes full of baby food items, gloves, sterilization kits, ventilators and mattress pumps. But the group still needs some more items.

"(We need) Band-Aids, crutches, wheelchairs, orthopedic splints, sling -- anything that will disinfect and clean skin," Brock said.

Beasley, the former dean of UT-Houston, said he knows firsthand how much help is needed.

"I have been in and out of Thailand for many years. I go with a heavy heart for the suffering of the people there. Now is a time for human beings to work together for the basic help of everybody," Beasley said.

The king and queen of Thailand honored Beasley for his work on immunizations in 1999.

Beasley said Thailand has a very advanced public health system, even more advanced than the United States in many ways; however, he said it is still hard to imagine what he and the other volunteers will be up against once arriving there.

The doctor plans to meet with other doctors in Thailand to offer help from UT's Disaster Preparedness Center.

If you'd like to help pack supplies, Medical Bridges could use the help. To learn more, call (713) 748-8131 or visit www.medicalbridges.org.