This is a call for any diabetes supplies that you or our patients may have on your shelves, closets or garages! Spring cleaning? Doing inventory? Have diabetes supplies that are not needed? Please don’t throw diabetes supplies away, but pass them on to the newly formed Malawian Diabetes Association. This effort is affiliated with the Pittsburgh Presbytery Partnership Committee which provides support to churches in Malawi.
Malawi, Central Africa, is about the size of the state of Pennsylvania. Diabetes care is virtually non existent in Malawi. Diabetes is not frequently diagnosed and when it is diagnosed and when it is diagnosed, there is no treatment. If you happen to be lucky enough to live near the only diabetes clinic in Malawi and need insulin, you may be able to obtain one bottle of insulin per month. If you live elsewhere, you must move or die. The hospitals and physicians in Malawi do not even have the availability of glucose meters, but use a laboratory glucose, even in the emergency room!
I have been assisting efforts to get supplies into the hands of medical people, fostering application to the International Diabetes Federation, and communicating with key people who work with the Malawian Ministry of Health. Until there is a sustained ability for the hospital to obtain supplies through their “Central Hospital System”, I will be collecting donations at Brother’s Brother Foundation (Pittsburgh North Side) and will send them with medical personnel and missionaries who travel there. There will be 20 people going to Malawi in June.
The country is so needy that in many ways it is like “spitting in the bucket”, I am reminded of the story of the little boy and his dad walking on the beach after a storm. There were thousands of starfish dying on the sand, and the little boy picked one up and threw it into the water. As he reached for another, his father said “Look at all theses starfish! There are so many that throwing a couple back won’t make any difference…” But as the boy picked up the starfish, he said “I know. But it sure made a difference to that one!”
We need syringes, new meters, many strips, lancets, pen needles, glucagons, oral agents, and insulin. Please call me for arrangements for pick-up.
May God Bless you for your donation!
Jean Betschart Roemer
Children’s Hospital of Pgh
412 692-8722 (work)
412 257-8756 (home)
Jeanwrites4U@aol.com
