When Hurricane Dorian made landfall in Abaco in late 2019, the catastrophic Category 5 storm devastated the island, rendering it uninhabitable. Still, encouraged by her patients, lab technician Angie Collie returned to her island home and mustered up the courage to rebuild from the rubble. After reopening, one of her patients told her about the Access Accelerator's work to help small businesses recover from the storm and encouraged her to apply.

"I decided to sign up because I thought there was no harm in applying," Collie shared. "I thought to myself, if I get it, I get it. If I don't, at least I tried."

Auskell Medical was established in 2003 after Collie, who worked as a medical lab technician for a doctor in Marsh Harbour for 18 years, decided to open her own medical centre where doctors could come to render their services.

The name of the medical centre is a combination of the names of her two rainbow babies.

"My husband and I were trying to get pregnant but had a miscarriage the first time around," Collie explained. "We kept trying but weren't successful. I went to a fertility doctor, and they said my chances of getting pregnant were very slim because I had ovarian cysts and fibroids. When I got them surgically removed, they caused my uterus to twist to one side and shrink. Then after that, I was told my hormone levels were off, so I was really believing God for a miracle child."

As fate would have it when Collie returned to the fertility clinic for a follow-up visit, the doctor told her she was expecting, and during a subsequent ultrasound, she heard her baby's heartbeat for the first time.

"I had my first child, Perkell, in 1995, and my last child, Austin, a few years later," Collie shared. The name 'Auskell' took three letters from each of my children's names. I named my medical centre after them because I wanted it to be a clinic where miracles happened for people. God is the respecter of no person, and if he did it for me, he can do it for anybody once they have the faith to believe."

After receiving her miracle, Collie decided to leave her job to take care of her children since her job required her to work late-night shifts.

Still, after she retired, people would tell her to open up her own clinic because there was a shortage of medical facilities in Abaco, and it was difficult for people to get prompt care.

"People would always tell me it's so much trouble trying to get into the government clinic, and the private clinic required them to be a patient to be seen. I couldn't sleep for a week, so I fasted and prayed. Then all of a sudden, my mother had a vacant unit, and a doctor who was moving to Freeport told me she had to take all of her medical equipment out of the space she was renting."

Collie said the doctor had "everything to start a clinic" and "worked out a deal." Soon after, a relocating dental company sold all of its shelves, cabinets, and sinks to her for a reasonable price.

"After I got my building ready, I started calling doctors and asked them to come to Abaco one day out of the month to render their services, so people didn't have to travel to Nassau for medical assistance," Collie shared. "Before I knew it, I had 25 specialists coming to Auskell Medical monthly. A doctor in Cooper's Town was retiring from the government clinic and also decided to work with me. That's how I got my family care practice started, and from there, everything started to fall in line."

After 19 years of providing healthcare services to Abaco, Hurricane Dorian hit.

"When the storm struck, we were in four different units," Collie said. "I had a physical therapy office in one unit, an eye and mammogram room in another unit, and two other rooms for doctors to use." Everything was destroyed.

"After the storm, I thought I would just retire," Collie added. "But when I returned to Abaco, people in town kept asking me when I was opening up again. They had more faith in me than I had in myself, so I repaired a few apartments and reopened Auskell Medical. Once our doors were open, patients started coming in."

One of those patients told Collie about Access Accelerator, and after applying for a Disaster Recovery grant, she received $55,000.

"The funding I received helped me buy machinery to replace the ones I lost during the storm," Collie said. "When I learned I would receive the grant; I was pleasantly surprised. Before the storm, Auskell Medical had three times as much machinery as now. Although I'm not back to where I was, I'm definitely in a better place than I would have been if Access Accelerator didn't help out."

Now that she has purchased an x-ray machine and ophthalmology device, Collie said her next goal is to get a mammogram machine. As for long-term objectives, Collie said she also has dreams of building a mini-hospital in Abaco.

"I have the property, and I'm getting ready to build the foundation, and I hope that we will start building that $18-million project within the next ten years," Collie stated. "But Auskell Medical is up and running for now, and I am extremely grateful. I am a firm believer in miracles, and I know it was God who touched one of my patient's hearts to encourage me to apply to Access Accelerator."