Wednesday, July 11th, our speaker, a Ft Collins native is Melisa Esposito, now Director of Grants for Project C.U.R.E. This organization is the world's largest distributor of donated medical supplies and equipment. My experience in medicine reminds me there is an abundance of durable, usable items from our medical system because of Federal regulations requiring disposable and single use. Multiple hospitals participate in this program including ones in Northern Colorado. Distribution is based on expert assessment of needs in locales. Specific donations were illustrated for a few of these projects-eg, OB delivery tables, hospital beds, water purification, and surgical supplies. Rotary International currently provides grants for 6 projects in this organization. Highlights with photos were shown for a few active projects. For example-
Project C.U.R.E. Strengthens Global Health Systems
"Saving Mothers" partners with other NGO's and local governments to improve perinatal care in a number of countries (think AIDS) and has resulted in a 40% decrease in infant/maternal mortality where this has been in use.
A project in Tanzania addresses the needs of medical provision in prisons (often neglected in African countries) with supplies for in-house dispensaries.
The needs (eg, 6 deliveries per day) of a large refugee camp in Rwanda seemed overwhelming where there are 3 medical doctors per 50,000 inhabitants. (Melisa listed the UN definitions for the terms "migrant", "asylum seeker" and "refugee"-terms all too familiar to us on the daily news reports).
Seemed to me, a David and Goliath story, in this world of seemingly overwhelming problems. Organizations like this remind us that "David" can prevail.