Today is a big packing day!
Sort! Wrap! Sterilize! Pack!
Down at the warehouse at 1000h today there will be a busy hive of activity!
Operating room nurses from pediatrics and from adults will be organizing and sorting supplies. Some are recently procured from what's been discarded at the hospitals but can't be reused. Other materials have previously been wrapped by the nurses and sterilized for our surgical caseload in Ecuador. There are surgical sponges, drapes to cover the patients during surgery and various single use instruments and staplers.
We have to take down two hockey bags per mission volunteer participant. Each bag is stuffed with all of things we need to deliver hospital care in Quito at the Tierra Nueva hospital. There are also medications for anesthesia and medications for the ward. There are dressings and IV giving sets. There are blood pressure cuffs and even a device called a Hemacue which provides “point of care” laboratory results. We take many crutches which have been discarded by our patients.
I would estimate that there are probably 10 hours of preparation for each hour of surgery. I don't think that's an exaggeration!
We are very very lucky to have a donated warehouse. It is shared with a car racing club. They use the facility for meetings and some storage. We have secured the back half of the facility with shelves for the surgical supplies and we use the front meeting hall for the preparation, sorting and wrapping.
Rotary and Lions service clubs support us in our work. And there are many numerous smaller donations made by individuals and businesses. The budget for a two week surgical mission is over $200,000. Each individual is responsible to raise the $2,000 cost of their travel, accomodation and meals. But the cost of a mission is far more than the cost of looking after our professional volunteers. We must buy surgical prostheses and surgical supplies and these are expensive. A hip prosthesis costs about $2,000 and we insert 40 of them each year!
If you think you can help us out then go to https://www.camta.com/ and click on the “Donate” link. We have only 13 weeks left until departure for Ecuador.
Please add your comments!
Thanks.
John Lilley