400 Boxes of Supplies Donated by REMEDY Headed to Haiti
With the help of 20 Duke students and Family Health Ministries, more than 400 boxes of much-needed medical supplies are on the way to Haiti. The supplies, which include 64 boxes of bandages and wound dressings, are donations from REMEDY, a volunteer program at Duke that collects usable surplus medical supplies from the Medical Center for donation to Duke-affiliated global health projects.
John Lohnes, director of the REMEDY program and a Duke physician assistant, emphasized the donated supplies “are all recovered surplus items that would otherwise have been discarded due to the regulatory and logistical constraints of the American health care system. However, they are all usable items that will be put to good use in this disaster relief effort.”
The supplies were loaded on a truck bound for Florida and then transported by a small plane that landed on a bypass highway in Leogane. A second truck leaves later today and will be in Haiti within a day. Family Health Ministries has mobilized medical teams with trauma, orthopedic and anesthesia skills to meet these supplies in Haiti and deploy them to the clinics and communities throughout rural Haiti.
Volunteers are needed from 1-4 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 24, to sort, inventory and pack remaining surplus at REMEDY’s warehouse on LaSalle Street. Interested volunteers should contact John Lohnes at john.lohnes@duke.edu.