Another good year! PeaceHealth continues to be very generous. We get donations from 3 local PeaceHealth hospitals. The recent newspaper and TV didn’t hurt. Several experienced nurses, pharmacists and technicians have contacted me and would like help or are looking for supplies for their own 3rd world projects. We continue to donate certain items locally to Eugene Mission, St. Vincent DePaul and others.
Most of the current shipments we’ve helped with are to Honduras and several African countries.
Honduras
We work with Michael Hosie, Coos Bay/North Bend Rotary. They have a good connection in the capital city with both a Rotary Club and the huge public hospital. They ship about one 40 foot container per year. They just shipped about 6 weeks ago. Michael will be in Honduras this month meeting with Rotary and his doctor connections.
Ivory Coast
Our connection is Aron Bosle member of CB/NB Rotary. He is also imaging manager of the Bay Area. His church pays the shipping and Aron goes to Ivory Coast with volunteer groups.
West Africa
Aron expects to ship a 40 foot container this month which will include a portable X-Ray and 2 large surgery lights that John Brown Sr. was instrumental in having them donated to Rotary.
Democratic Republic of Congo
Dr. Ellen Heinitz and her husband John in Grants Pass are the connections. Several months ago they shipped the ambulance donated by the city of Oakridge and also 3 months ago shipped a 40 foot container. Both arrived. We contributed supplies for the ambulance and a couple of truck loads of equipment and supplies for the container shipment, plus enough paint, donated by Forrest Paint, to paint the inside of the small hospital. Ellen and John just returned from Congo a few weeks ago. The walls are freshly painted, equipment and supplies in use and Congo has enough to start another small clinic in another town. Dr Ysu, in Congo, operates the original hospital on about $2,000 U.S. per month.
Ghana, Africa
Dr. John Neeld of Ghana Hope Foundation is our local connection. Dr. John works with Rosemari Davis of McMinnville Rotary putting together a HUGE shipment. Rosemari is also the retired CEO of McMinnville hospital. We have a huge amount of equipment stored for them at Forrest Paint. The foundations goal was to ship one 40 foot container. They are a victim of success. They now expect to ship 6 to 8 containers as soon as they can arrange shipping and other logistics.
Uganda
Airport Rotary people are in Uganda now. We supplied them with numerous small supplies to take in their luggage.
We lost two storage locations in recent months. The new donated space we have a St. Vincent more than makes up for the loss with a huge amount of space. We’ll still have space for large heavy items at Eugene Mission.
I expect to make one more truck shipment to Coos Bay this month.
Sometime soon we should have our own hospital web site online. There are several sources of supply donations we haven’t approached as yet.
Thanks for your support. I never imagined this would snow ball into such a huge project.
– Lauren Alexander