One of the biggest challenges mine survivors face throughout Southeast Asia is access to good medical care. If they are lucky enough to get to a hospital in time without losing a life-threatening amount of blood, the health care they receive often proves inadequate for their recovery beyond mere survival.

How to Donate Medical Equipment & Supplies

Currently, Clear Path International has the capacity and logistical support to collect medical items in the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. Items originating from other areas can only be accepted if they are shipped to Seattle by the donor. However, if the donation is large enough to warrant a stand-alone container shipment, arrangements can be made to send the items straight from any West Coast location to Southeast Asia via the closest container port. Donated mechanical or electrical items have to be fully functional. Clear Path can only accept equipment with missing components when they are part of a series of good items and can be used as spare parts. Clear Path cannot accept liquid pharmaceuticals, expired drugs, hazardous materials or used prosthetics. After the donation has been made, Clear Path requests a letter from the donor indicating the items and their fair-market value. The donor then receives an official thank-you letter with tax-deduction information. If you are a potential donor to this life-saving program, please contact Clear Path International’s West Coast office: 321 High School Rd. NE, #574 Bainbridge Island, WA 98110 206-780-5964 imbert@cpi.org Attn: Imbert Matthee

That is the reason Clear Path International launched a special hospital support program to provide critical care medical equipment and supplies to hospitals in mine-affected countries.Since the summer of 2001, Clear Path has sent 28 full-sized containers of medical goods donated by health care facilities in the United States and Canada.

Twenty of the shipments have gone to hospitals in Vietnam and Cambodia. The others were sent to hospitals in mine-affected communities in Afghanistan, Jordan, Iraq, Colombia, Peru and the Philippines. Clear Path has also begun sending shipments to the region hit by the tsunami of 2004. Its first one went to the east coast of India. Others are planned for Indonesia and Sri Lanka, which also happen to be mine-affected areas.

The goal is to boost local hospital’s ability to treat and heal mine accident survivors, so the focus is on equipment and supplies that will promote this care. Items include surgical goods, such as hand instruments, sutures, blades, syringes, IV components, gowns, towels and drapes.

But Clear Path also sends sophisticated equipment such as autoclaves, heart-monitoring machines, defibrillators, x-ray machines and ultrasound monitors. Finally, the shipments include equipment for proper healing and care of limb injuries, such as modern hospital beds, wheel chairs, crutches, walkers, braces, slings and canes. Whenever possible, Clear Path tries to include items that are a benefit to hospital patients in general, such as gurneys, examination tables, cribs, infant incubators and oxygen tents.

So far, eight hospitals and clinics in central Vietnam and seven hospitals in various parts of Cambodia have benefited from this program. But because many hospitals in both countries are still far behind even a semblance of western medical standards, a lot more work still needs to be done.

The medical donation program represents an effort welcomed in North America as well as Southeast Asia. Healthcare in the United States and Canada promotes a high turnover of equipment and supplies, leaving hospitals with regular surpluses they are often forced to send to local landfills.

But in Southeast Asia, these same items are valued as life-saving devices for which local hospitals lack budgets. So far, more than a dozen hospitals, nursing homes, clinics, nonprofit partners and producers throughout the West have made donations towards this critical ongoing Clear Path project.

The program is run entirely by volunteers, who collect the items (Mostly from the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia) and bring them to a central warehouse in Seattle. The space at the warehouse south of downtown is donated by Commercial Floor Distributors, owned by supporter Kevin Sutherland. Clear Path has also received shipping support from ocean carrier APL and the East Meets West Foundation both in Oakland, Calif., and logistical assistance from Hill Moving & Storage on Bainbridge Island, Wash., RNI Distribution, Kam Valley Distributors and Pacific Coast Express in British Columbia, and from Northwest Airlines in Minneapolis.

Current equipment and supply donors:

Group Health Cooperative, Seattle
Ethicon, Sommerville, New Jersey
Vietnam Medical Project, San Jose, Calif.
Overlander Extended Care Hospital, Kamloops, B.C.
Ponderosa Extended Care Hospital, Kamloops, B.C.
Royal Inland Hospital, Kamloops, B.C.
Multicare Health System, Tacoma, Wash.
Tacoma General Hospital, Tacoma, Wash.
Martha & Mary Lutheran Services, Puolsbo, Wash.
Island Hospital, Anacortes, Wash.
Harrison Hospital, Bremerton, Wash.
Sisters of the Providence, Seattle, Wash.
Dr. Frank Flemming, Everett, Wash.
Bayview Manor Retirement Homes, Seattle
Children’s Hospital, Seattle
Mount Tahoma OBGYN Clinic, Puyallup, Wash.
The Mobility Project, Silverdale, Wash.
Rotary Club of Bainbridge Island, Wash.Group Health Cooperative, Tacoma
Cascada Vista, Redmond
Snoqualmie Falls Hospital, Wash.
Olympic Medical, Seattle
Samuel Briggs, Seattle
Northwest Lithotripter Services, Llc., Roseburg, Ore.
Rotary Club of Lynnwood, Wash.
Dr. Tony Lane, Silverdale
Pharm-A-Save, Monroe
Healing The Children, Seattle
Northwest Kidney Centers, Seattle
Bethany's, Silverlake
Dallas Retirement Village, Oregon
Regency at Renton
Soroptimists, Sequim
Prosthetics Research Study, Seattle
Northcoast Medical, San Jose, Calif.
Wolfgang Brolley, Seattle
Apria Health Care, Redmond
Seattle Conservation Corps
Puget Sound Guardian, Redmond
Fidalgo Dermatology, Anacortes
MR Imaging Services, Roseburg, Ore.
Eton Medical
Providence Marionwood, Sammamish
St. Joseph's Hospital, Seattle
Renu Medical, Everett
Evergreen Care Vista, Kirkland