Helping hand for hospitals

AFTER returning from a two-week volunteer stint in an Ecuador hospital nine years ago, Winnipeg operating room nurse Phyllis Reader began noticing perfectly good equipment and supplies going to waste. Since then, along with her congregation at Winnipeg's Westminster United and the community at large, she has helped send tons of supplies and equipment to 25 developing countries.

The supplies sent south are either surplus or about to be discarded because of North American regulatory or liability concerns. Functioning wheelchairs, beds and lab equipment that would have been junked is now being put to use.

In 1997, when Reader went to Ecuador as a volunteer with Medical Ministry International, she was appalled by hospital conditions. "There were no supplies. Dirt floors. No clean suction tubing. Our sponges that we use for surgery, we dispose of here. There, we were washing them, hanging them out on the line and using them again and again."

In many developing countries, says Reader, disposable gloves are simply re-used. Canadian hospitals and health administrators might worry about being sued for using expired products, but that is not a concern in many countries.

As a member of the outreach committee at Westminster United, Reader asked to use the church basement to store medical supplies she had begun to collect for her next overseas trip. She then asked friends in the congregation to help. Through a fellow choir member, she met a husband-and-wife team from a local Catholic church, heading on a mission to Africa. In August 2001, Reader and the other nurse, with their husbands' support, launched International HOPE (Health Overseas Project Education).

Since then, salvaged, discarded or unused medical supplies have gone from Winnipeg to more than 25 countries, carried in luggage by individuals or groups, or shipped in containers. International HOPE works with partner organizations such as Canadian Food for Children or the Mennonite Central Committee to pay for shipping and ensure the products reach their destination. Volunteers who collect, sort and package the items initially came from United and Catholic churches, but now come from across the community.

"The most cost-efficient method of getting these supplies anywhere is by container," says Val McIntyre, a member of Westminster United and current president of International HOPE. Partners help ensure that happens, she says.

Lynn Heise, a nurse and volunteer from Westminster United, and Roma Maconachie, an occupational therapist who organizes the warehouse volunteer list, feel the project is good at recycling and using people's skills. The warehouse shelves are full of packages of supplies, ranging from bandages and disposable gloves to sutures, scissors and towel clips.

"They're perfectly good," said Heise. "All you have to do is sterilize them and use them again." Another volunteer buys and donates candles. "If you've got no electricity, you use candles," says Maconachie. "When we pack boxes, we throw a few in."

Reader, who goes on self-funded medical missions to developing countries once or twice a year, still sees the waste in Canadian operating rooms and the need abroad. For her, International HOPE can help by getting bigger and better.

The missions "just re-energize me and prioritize my life all over again," says Reader. ''I'm the average wife and mother down the street, and I have a strong, strong faith, and for whatever reason I can lift that up for others.

''I've been so fortunate in my life and my skills that I can do things in the developing world," she says. Beyond the work, there's also "joy and laughter and kibitzing . . . dancing and singing with them," that "bring out the child in me."

As for International HOPE, Reader says it is "not about me" and has "evolved beyond my wildest imagination . . . Obviously, the idea was right."

- courtesy of The United Church Observer

Mission Fields Fall 2006