Jaime Laboy Torres is more than 1,000 miles from home.

But he is finally getting the medical care he needs.

  • Humanitarian flight brings Jaime Laboy Torres to Florida
  • He is first Puerto Rico Maria patient
  • Will stay with son in Orlando after he is discharged
  • Link: Doctors for Puerto Rico

The 76-year-old, who is battling prostate cancer, is from Villalba, Puerto Rico. The small town was devastated by Hurricane Maria. The storm indefinitely postponed a scheduled surgery, and Laboy Torres wasn't getting the medication he needed.

"Here, everything is excellent," Laboy Torres said in Spanish from his hospital bed at Tampa General Hospital. "The attention, the nurses, I am friends with all of them. This hospital is 1,000 years ahead of Puerto Rico."

Earlier in October, Dr. Elymaris Perez Colon and a group of local physicians traveled to Puerto Rico to bring supplies and administer healthcare to those on the island. They started a Facebook page called Doctors for Puerto Rico: A Hope and Health Project. Laboy Torres' granddaughter, who lives in Jacksonville, reached out to the page asking if they could help her grandfather.

"Just living without electricity, without portable water, relying on whatever little they can get from donations is just not the optimal conditions for a patient like him," Perez Colon said.

Perez Colon was able to get Laboy Torres on a humanitarian flight, and he became Tampa General Hospital's first patient from Puerto Rico.

"This came to us through (Perez Colon). God is with us," Laboy Torres said.

Laboy Torres, who is a retired teacher, said although he's getting the medical care he needs, it was hard leaving his wife of more than 50 years back home. It's difficult for him to talk about what his city has endured.

"A lot of sadness," Laboy Torres said. "I cry when I see the pictures. I cry because why is this happening? We were already bad and Maria finished us. Villalba was in pieces."

Perez Colon said they are working to bring Laboy Torres' wife to Florida along with a few other patients in need of cancer treatment.

When Laboy Torres is discharged from the hospital, he will stay with his son in Orlando.

Perez Colon and other physicians are returning to Puerto Rico this weekend.