It’s mid February 2023, and so far this year we’ve sent off 30 boxes of donated equipment to the hospitals and clinics in northern Malawi. Contents include new lenses and frames, glasses cases, lens hand-edgers, focimeters, surgical equipment, optical equipment spares, and vision test charts. The parcels go from Colchester by courier to our friends at The Bananabox Trust in Dundee, where they’re packed by volunteers into a 40′ container, for onward shipping to Malawi. Depending on container despatch dates, the end-to-end journey time is around three to six months.
Since meeting many representatives of other hospitals in northern Malawi at the October conference (see recent posts), we have become more widely aware of how great the need is for the most basic clinical equipment in the area. So we are pleased to help supply what’s needed, wherever we can.
Thanks to everyone who has donated the items or supplied the funds to make these parcels possible. While we continue to send equipment to help get health services started, we are always looking – together with our friends in Malawi – for ways in which future services can be less dependent on supplies from the UK.