Main Line Health volunteers will load a 40-foot shipping container with medical equipment, supplies, and more than 40 hospital beds and other requested items such as wheel chairs and bassinnets to be sent to Hospital 36, a military hospital in Sierra Leone. In honor of the donation, the hospital in Africa will temporarily rename itself “MLH Sierra Leone.”
Last May, Ibrahim and Osman Conteh, brothers and Riddle Hospital nurses heard that the hospital was replacing beds on the maternity and orthopedic units, and they requested that the old beds be donated to their home country. Hospital administration approved the request, and soon, the brothers received donations from across the health system and from others in the community.
WHY: Hospital 36 currently has no beds and a minimal amount of medical equipment for its patients. The Ebola Virus outbreak in that part of Africa has resulted in a ban on travel, restricting the delivery of equipment until now. The beds and equipment have been stored in the gymnasium at Don Guanella School in Springfield, where volunteers will work to load the donations into the container to be shipped.
WHO: Riddle Hospital’s administration and the Conteh brothers have worked with their other brother (Abdul) who is a minister in Sierra Leone, to arrange the donation. Volunteers from across Main Line Health will be present to help pack the items to be donated onto the shipping container. One of the Conteh brothers will be meeting the shipping container in Sierra Leone and providing lessons to the hospital staff about how to operate the donated beds and equipment.
WHERE: Don Guanella School, 1797 Sproul Rd, Springfield, PA 19064
