Extra Medical Supplies? Send Them To Kenya! How The Supplies Can Make A Difference
Developing nations (a.k.a., third world countries) are on the lowest rung of the human socioeconomic ladder. They are always in desperate need of any kind of assistance. Medically speaking, they are barely surviving, and need more help than the 154 countries in this world that are doing better than they.
If you run a hospital or clinic, and you have extra medical supplies at the end of a fiscal year, you could donate them to a Kenyan non profit charity that oversees medical care for Kenyans. The tax write-off would help offset any taxes your hospital or clinic would owe, and you would be saving so many people in an impoverished company. Still not convinced? Here are some medical facts about Kenya, and how certain supplies would definitely help its people.
Malaria Is the Number One Killer of Kenyans
In an age where the mosquito is nothing more than a pest in the U.S., it kills thousands of people in Kenya every year. In fact, the malaria that is spread by mosquitoes in Kenya kills more each year than HIV and AIDS, which has been a leading cause of death for most Africans nationwide since the early 1980's. The truly crazy thing is, a simple shot of artemether-lumefantrine can prevent death from malaria. The U.S. has a stockpile of it. If you have this simple, life-saving medicine in your inventory, send all extra doses to Kenya with the doctors that travel there.
AIDS and STDs
If you do not have artemether-lumefantrine, send whatever extra doses of anti-viral and retro-viral medications instead. If you cannot help cure malaria, you can help treat Kenyans with HIV/AIDS, and help them live longer lives. Other anti-viral drugs used for other diseases, such as herpes and STDs, are also needed. Birth control and condoms are becoming more common as doctors are teaching the Kenyans about reproductive health, so these products are useful too.
Infections and Wounds
Believe it or not, a simple cut in an impoverished country can kill you. In Kenya, where there is little proper hygiene or clean, running water, a cut cannot be flushed or kept clean. These cuts frequently get infected, go systemic, and people die because they could not afford a doctor, bandages, or antibiotics. Sending your extra bandages, topical antibiotics, and oral antibiotics to medical charities in Kenya means that deaths from simple infections are eliminated.
Pregnancies, Mortality Rates, and Sexual Violence
Women and young girls in Kenya are frequently raped and/or they have their genitals mutilated by foreign objects. This leaves them pregnant, or dying of infections from the mutilation and the dozens of flies that crawl into the open wounds of their genitals. Sutures, surgical needles, and supplies needed to reconstruct genitals so that the worst cases are able to urinate properly and/or allow flow of menstrual blood are urgently needed. Otherwise, these girls and women die within days of being attacked.
Pregnancies are also a problem. Malnutrition in this country is another leading cause of death, and even more so for pregnant women and girls, and their infants. Mortality rates are some of the highest in all of Africa. Stillborn children are the result of poor prenatal care and malnutrition of the mothers. Any prenatal vitamins and feminine hygiene products that you can send, plus vitamins for the children these women already have, are as essential as the drugs and supplies previously mentioned.
If You Cannot Send Supplies, Why Not Send Yourself?
If you do not have any extra supplies, or you do not have the clearance to donate your extra supplies, why not donate your medical expertise? Public healthcare and voluntary healthcare makes up the vast majority of medical professionals that help these people. Even then, there is a drastic shortage of professionals who know what they are doing. Your expertise as a doctor or nurse would be just as invaluable as the supplies.