Redistribution of Excess Medical Supplies Saves Lives, Environment

VIDA staffers in Emeryville, Calif. put medication carts bound for Callao, Peru onto a shipping container.

"We're providing a double service to Latin America and to the Bay Area. "
- Jorge Valle, VIDA executive director

Every day in the Bay Area, several tons of medical equipment and supplies go to waste. But BAIDO member Volunteers in Inter-American Development Assistance (VIDA) work with Bay Area health institutions to redistribute the goods to people who urgently need them in Latin America.

This month, VIDA has made Mexico the latest recipient of medical equipment salvaged from local hospitals and nursing homes. A train-borne shipping container went southward on April 22 carrying some $330,000 worth of supplies bound for the most economically disadvantaged areas.

Because of inventory backups, new regulations, obsolescence, and other dilemmas that regularly confront health-care administrators, the medical world ends up with large quantities of unwanted wheelchairs, hospital beds and gurneys, prosthetics, disposable gloves, liquid foods and IV fluids, dialysis machines, and other goods.

According to VIDA executive director Jorge Valle, the organization provides a vital service not only to the recipient institutions but to the donors as well. "For example, we are taking 40 beds from a nursing home in Manteca -- otherwise they wouldn't know what to do with them. So basically we do them a favor and they do us a favor. We're providing a double service to Latin America and to the Bay Area."

At its U.S. warehouse in Emeryville, California, VIDA collects excess and reusable medical equipment and supplies from nearly 30 Bay Area hospitals and a vast number of smaller health institutions. It then redistributes the equipment and supplies to partner organizations in Peru, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Chile, Honduras, Cuba, Jamaica, Ecuador, Haiti, and now, Mexico.

U.S. hospitals alone are responsible for over 6,600 tons of waste per day, or 2.4 million tons per year, 1% of all the waste generated in America. In addition to severely taxing U.S. landfills, the incineration of some of this medical waste is a leading source of dioxin and mercury pollution.

Since 1991, VIDA has provided $61 million worth of donated medical supplies to care for more than 2 million people. This aid has dramatically improved the quality and availability of medical care in communities from Havana, to the Andes, to the inner reaches of the Amazon. At the same time, every year VIDA and its partners divert hundreds of tons of medical equipment and supplies from U.S. landfills and incinerators.

"We are always trying to ship to more countries," Valle said, "and eventually one day, when we get enough supplies and we get bigger, hopefully we'll be able to reach every country. That's the long-term goal."

Volunteers for Inter-American Development Assistance (VIDA) is the largest San Francisco Bay Area organization that redistributes medical supplies. For more information or to inquire about monetary or in-kind donations please contact VIDA at (510) 655-8432 or visit www.vidausa.org.