03 Nov Beds–and Much More–for Mattru Hospital
We have some exciting news for Mattru Hospital in Sierra Leone!
We’ve been studying how to make Mattru Hospital in Sierra Leone stable, healthy, and financially viable. One great need is equipment.
We put together a list of 150 items for the hospital to accommodate medical teams and do surgery, plus some real basic hospital supplies. One item was more beds. Ron Baker told that the beds at Mattru have never had mattresses. Part of it was more of a wish list. We began circulating this list to various organizations, including International Aid, Medical World Mission (the medical side of Samaritan’s Purse), and Brother’s Brother.
The first to respond was Brother’s Brother. A hospital had just given them 400 crank-type beds which were only three years old. They said we could have 53 of them, which would fill one shipping container. We would get the beds nicely packed in a shipping container, ready to go. We just had to get the container to Sierra Leone. That’s expensive–up to $13,000 for one container.
An Indiana doctor asked me about shipping ideas. I directed him to Samaritan’s Purse, which helps organizations in various ways including with shipping. He talked to the director of their medical program, who said they’d be glad to pay the shipping costs.
But there was more. He said Samaritan’s Purse had been looking at our list of 150 items. He said they could provide nearly all of them–some in 2008, most of the rest in 2009. Plus, they would again handle the shipping costs.
Isn’t that great? This is a blessing to Global Ministries, but a much bigger blessing to Mattru Hospital and the people they serve.
Samaritan’s Purse hopes to ship the beds by the end of October. I heard from them this week, and they were making arrangements.
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