Tools for Healing
By Rashel Stephenson

“Do you have money for the sutures?” a hospital worker asked the man who had brought his wife in for surgery. Like many hospitals in Uganda, here supplies were scarce. Only two sets of sutures remained. To buy more, the hospital needed money. The man raced back to his village to sell a goat, but when he returned, he learned his wife had died. Originally heard on National Public Radio in January 2007

Sutures in every size, class, and composition lay at the sterile fingertips of Emory Healthcare surgeons. Boxes are so abundant in the United States that we order them by the hundreds – and casually discard them when a new product is released. “As one of the country’s top medical facilities, we are always acquiring the most cutting-edge technology and latest product to stay at the forefront of advancing medicine,” said Chris Johnson, assistant director of Emory Healthcare’s materials management department. “As better equipment and supplies become available, we
have no use for the others.”

Stringent and changing health care guidelines also cause excess medical supplies to become waste in hospital storerooms. Eventually, these “useless” supplies end up in incinerators and landfills throughout the United States.

MedShare International provides an alternative – medical recycling. The organization collects useable surplus medical supplies from hospitals around the country and re-sorts and distributes them to under-equipped hospitals and clinics around the globe. Not only has MedShare saved more than 755,200 cubic feet of landfill space, they have ultimately saved thousands of lives.In Uganda, as in most undeveloped countries, even the most basic medical supplies are in serious demand. “MedShare is about bridging the gap between our surplus and their need,” said MedShare CEO and co-founder A.B. Short. Currently serving 89 countries with continual expansion, MedShare has sent $41 million worth of medical supplies to needy regions of the world since 1998.

“Emory has been with us from the beginning,” said Short. Before officially founding MedShare, Short and co-founder Bob Freeman consulted with Jim Curran, dean of the Rollins School of Public Health (RSPH) and Bill Foege, Presidential Distinguished Scholar and Professor Emeritus in the Hubert Department of Global Health at RSPH.

Short credits Foege, currently a fellow with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Health Program, with giving MedShare its most critical piece of advice. “Bill [Foege] simply pointed out that current non-profits collecting surplus were missing something. These organizations assumed developing countries needed anything and everything without ever having a conversation with the receiving end about what they really need,” recalled Short. “If we could connect with those needy hospitals and clinics, we could really make a difference.”

And so MedShare connects. With reliance on triangular partnerships, MedShare continually develops relationships with corporations and other international non-profits that maintain staff overseas. Partners serve as liaisons between MedShare and recipient facilities and help shepherd MedShare containers to their remote destinations.

Recipient facilities must apply and be approved to receive donations, which are supported by either sending medical teams to help or by directly shipping a 40-foot container loaded with supplies, based on specific needs. “Emory has consulted with us, volunteered for us, sponsored us,
and has had [supplies] in just about every single container we have shipped,” said Short.

Since MedShare’s inception, Emory Healthcare has collected and donated more than 30,000 pounds of unused and surplus medical equipment and supplies. In early 2007, Emory Healthcare heightened awareness of the MedShare relationship and emphasized support. “Just knowing our work force and culture, I knew we could do more with this outreach,” said Emory Healthcare President and CEO John Fox.

As a result of the employees’ enthusiasm and Fox’s commitment, Emory Healthcare has had a 300-percent increase in collections. “It gives Emory Healthcare staff an opportunity to work on something meaningful together,” Fox said.

Emory Healthcare employees filled Saturday volunteer sign-up slots so quickly some volunteers had to take a rain check to participate. Daniel Martin, a surgical technician from Emory University Hospital, has been a regular at MedShare’s Decatur warehouse. He is able to offer his clinical expertise to help sort specialized surgical equipment. “MedShare staff make you feel like what you’re doing is important – not just busy work,” he said.

Martin said his volunteer work is meaningful as he gains better insight into the struggles of those who lack resources. “It’s good to know the supplies we are handling will help save lives,” he said. Through Volunteer Emory, students like pre-med senior Tony Longhini are also donating time and expertise. Longhini gave every Friday afternoon of his junior year to the organization as he chauffeured handfuls of Emory students on the Volunteer Emory bus, then spent hours categorizing and boxing supplies for shipment.

“Students get as much as they give,” said Melody Porter, director of Volunteer Emory. “The MedShare experience helps students learn about surgery and about how medical supplies and equipment are used. And it gives students an opportunity to get outside of themselves and do something meaningful.”

A team of 12 Emory medical students got an opportunity to travel to a remote rural area in Haiti’s Central Plateau region. Before their journey, they visited MedShare to participate in a sorting session and to “shop” for items they would take to Haiti. Led by former Emory University Hospital emergency physician Jason Prystowsky, Emory student physicians treated more than 2,000 people, some of whom waited more than eight hours in extreme heat to receive care. Prystowsky hoped the young professionals would “develop a lifelong commitment to serve those sick and injured humans whose voice might not otherwise be heard.” As Emory Healthcare pledged to increase support of MedShare’s mission, they agreed to sponsor the cost to ship a container.

According to the Federal Ministry of Health, a woman dies every 10 minutes in Nigeria as a result of pregnancy and pregnancy-related factors. In Nigeria, which has the second highest maternal death during childbirth rate in the world, emergency obstetric care is largely unavailable, so mothers die as a result of complications like bleeding and eclampsia.

“We deliver an average of 1,200 babies annually, but we have no means of monitoring pregnant women,” said Gershom Ejeckham, a physician at Enugu State Hospital. “It’s amazing we survive at all here,” he said.Emory Healthcare shipped a personalized container to Nigeria in July stocked with medical supplies to help reduce the number of maternal and infant deaths.

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Rashel Stephenson is a freelance writer and has worked in the Emory Healthcare community for 12 years.