Hospital Supplies to Guatemala

U.S. club ships two tons of hospital supplies to Guatemala

Dick Swanson of the Rotary Club of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, USA, has a little more room in his garage now that two tons of hospital supplies he had been storing there were shipped to needy hospitals in Guatemala.

“We filled up my garage a couple of times with equipment bound for Guatemala,” said Swanson.

In November 2001, the club shipped a container load of supplies donated by two Rhode Island hospitals to a hospital in Jalapa, Guatemala, and to Guatemalan First Lady Evelyn de Portillo for distribution to other hospitals in her drive to equip the country’s hospitals. The shipment included linens, a hospital bed, gurneys, blankets, and monitoring equipment. A dozen boxes of toys, donated by Swanson’s wife who owns a toy store, were also added to the container.

The idea for the project began after Rotarian Swanson’s daughter, Dr. Kelly Swanson of Chicago’s Lutheran General Hospital, spent a week providing health care services to residents in Jalapa with a medical team coordinated by Advancing Medicine in Latin America (AMLA). Swanson was moved by his daughter’s reports about the need for medical supplies and equipment. For example, the doctor had only one sheet a day to treat up to 60 patients and gurneys were rusted and in bad condition. When Ron Jones, the club’s international service chair, learned that the local hospitals were clearing out surplus supplies, everything fell into place. The two Rotarians proceeded with a collection drive, and Swanson began to amass loads of supplies in his garage.

The Portsmouth Club covered local moving expenses, while the AMLA paid for shipping costs to Wilmington, Delaware, in a container from Chiquita, a U.S. food company. Chiquita then shipped the cargo free to Guatemala. In Chicago, the AMLA also filled a separate container of medical supplies they had collected and coordinated its shipping and delivery to Guatemala with the financial assistance of the Rotary Club of Northbrook, Illinois.

Dr. Swanson recently returned from a seven-day AMLA trip to Jalapa, where she and other medical staff used some of the donated supplies. An AMLA representative also met with members of the Rotary Club of Guatemala City who provided important information on coordinating future deliveries.

“It was not only a challenging project, but a fulfilling one as well,” Rotarian Swanson said. “We’ll continue to build on the relationship we’ve established with the Guatemalans and AMLA.”