5 Haiyan affected hospitals to get donated supplies

Five Philippine hospitals in the areas devastated by the passage of Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda will receive much needed medical supplies because of the Guam Regional Medical City, a Philippine hospital now based in Guam. GRMC started the ball rolling with a $50,000 donation to the Ayuda Foundation that had to be matched in order to purchase 40-foot containers of medical supplies and equipment.

The donation was quickly matched with a donation of $10,000 from the Bank of Guam and $40,000 from the Filipino Community of Guam raised by the Government of Guam. The combined funds paid for five 40-foot containers, the contents selected by the recipient hospitals.

As funds were being raised, Ayuda was in contact with its working partner, Med-Share International (www.medshare.org) out of San Leandro, California. Med-Share receives free donations of medical supplies, equipment, and supplies from manufacturers and hospitals, enabling them to offer 40-foot containers for $20,000.

The containers cost the same whether filled with medical supplies or costly medical equipment and, depending on how the contents are picked, each can have a value of over a million dollars if the hospital were to purchase the items.

This is the fourth time Med-Share has partnered with the Ayuda Foundation network to respond to a disaster in the Philippines.

The process of selecting the hospitals began with outreach to the national government, local business networks, NGO’s, media, and first-hand reports. The justification for each hospital was also debated by the Filipino Community of Guam prior to selection.

Due to its relationship with The Medical City Iloilo, GRMC was able to put together a two-man team of experts in hospital materials and supplies to assist one of the nearby selected hospitals, Iloilo Provincial Hospital, with the paperwork required to access the voluminous Med-Share inventory.

The Ayuda Foundation has identified the paperwork as a known bottleneck that slows down delivery of the donated medical cargo because hospital administrators are overwhelmed by the disaster.

The first five hospitals selected by the Filipino Community of Guam are the Ormoc District Hospital in Ormoc City, Leyte; Roxas Memorial Provincial Hospital in Roxas City, Capiz; Divine Word Hospital (St. Paul’s Hospital) in Tacloban City, Leyte; Iloilo Provincial Hospital in Iloilo; and Governor Celestino Gallares Memorial Hospital in Tagbilaran City. [I](Ayuda Foundation)[/I]