HOPE’s Donations of Medicines Immediately Put to Use in Nepal

As we marked the one-month anniversary of Nepal’s destructive earthquake, Project HOPE’s Gifts in Kind (GIK) team has been active in-country for most of that time coordinating the arrival of donated medicines and medical supplies. To date, almost $6.7 million in donations has arrived in five separate shipments and been delivered to Nepal’s Ministry of Health and Population in Kathmandu. Each shipment consisted of four pallets of 32 heavy, white boxes, plain and durable on the outside but full of important supplies inside that will be distributed by the Ministry to all 14 districts effected by the earthquake.

Project HOPE’smedical volunteers helped at the Manmohan Memorial Teaching Hospital since their arrival within days of the first earthquake and were there for the second earthquake that shook Kathmandu on May 12th. With the resulting influx of patients, especially those with terrible wounds, the hospital depleted much of its stock of disposable items such as sterile gloves and gauze and had neither the funds or the attention of the Ministry to replenish their stocks. HOPE’s GIK team sourced these items locally so that our volunteers could arrive at the hospital with the supplies they needed and restocked the hospital for the future.

The hospital was also in need of more medicines, many of which had already arrived in the 128 boxes of Project HOPE donations that had arrived from the United States. Through an expedited chain of command, HOPE was able to organize early access to these medicines at the Ministry of Health to personally deliver Manmohan’s share of some of their most needed medications.  Digging though those boxes was a lengthy process and the medications were delivered to the hospital and immediately put into use.

There has also been another donation to Manmohan, but this one came directly from one of our volunteers. Dr. Allen Webb helped for several days in the hospital’s ER including during the aftermath of the second earthquake. While talking with the nurses there, he realized that they lacked a refrigerator to keep medications cold in that wing of the hospital. With his direct donation, a small refrigerator was purchased by the GIK team and delivered to the ER for them to use. Everyone there was delighted and it went straight into the head nurse’s office for immediate use.

In the coming weeks, several more in GIK donation shipments will arrive in Kathmandu. Next in the pipeline is a load of vaccines, HOPE’s most complicated shipment because of specific temperature requirements. The GIK team will be busy for weeks more guaranteeing the safe arrival of these important donations to the people of Nepal in such a time of need.