InterCare - Medical aid for Africa

5th September 2024 InterCare- Medical Aid for Africa – John Winter     

John explained that InterCare’s purpose was to: reduce UK medical waste and save lives in Africa. They celebrate 50 years in operation since their founder Dr. Rosenburg recognised how much medical waste there was and thought he could do something useful with it. They have no external funding, but have sent about £19million worth of medical aid to sub – Saharan Africa. They are now based in Syston, Leicestershire, having acquired the MHRA wholesaler’s licence (Medical Healthcare Regulatory Authority) which enables them to acquire and export medicines. They are not aware of any other charity or organisation who do such work.  They have 71 Heath units in Sierra Leone, Malawi and Tanzania to whom they have regular contact sending consignments of medical aid; these include hospitals, dispensaries, orphanages, schools for the disabled, with the main focus out in the rural areas, rather than the cities. They are dedicated to ‘responsible’ aid with regular contact, including visits by their trustees and monitoring of activity.

He posed the question as to “Why is it needed?” The simple answer is that they have such poor resources, for example a dispensary may look fine from the outside, but inside it will be clean, but with very little or no funding; there might be just 3 metal beds, no water, no blankets or pillows, no electricity. He gave examples of virtually empty pharmacy shelves, little medicine or equipment to service the demands of vulnerable people and children. They send medicines (purchased or donated by healthcare companies), which have to be new or unused; healthcare goods, such as scissors, bandages, needles, instruments, stethoscopes, blood pressure machines, pulse oximeters. Larger equipment such as wheelchairs, crutches, walking frames/sticks in the last 4 years have been sent in ‘containers’, with NO plastic packaging. John gave examples of their work: such as antibiotics sent to Malawi treating 16 800 patients.  They have developed a “One Wish” initiative, posing the question: “If you could have just one thing, what would it be?” Some of the responses were: an ECG machine, an oxygen concentrator, even a dentist’s chair, theatre lamps (which stops the staff using torches in theatre!)  Another example was ophthalmic testing equipment for Kilema Health Centre in Tanzania, the only one in the country, now attracting many patients.  InterCare are a recycling charity and he pointed out our many UK households contain items of unused medical equipment (e.g. crutches and bandages) that could be put to good use in Africa. They also raise money by recycling unwanted household items and will be happy to receive any jewellery, mobile phones, iPads, Printer Inkjets, stamps and, naturally money; contributions are always welcome.  He left leaflets detailing the items they would like to collect for recycling.

In the 12 months ‘22 to’ 23 they did an exercise to monitor their contributions: Enough medicine for 76400 patients, worming tablets for 44800 patients; 500 instruments for diagnosis, 1000 dental and surgical instruments; 81500 items of PPE; 27500 syringes, 150 mobility items; 5000 bandages and 8000 dressings.  So they know they are doing GOOD and helping very large numbers of vulnerable people

A few questions followed, which John easily dealt with and Mary proposed the vote of thanks, thanking John for an amazing presentation, admitting like most of the members, she had not heard of InterCare before, and John had clearly demonstrated what a worthwhile charity it is, reducing medical waste and helping people and children in Africa, then asking members to join him with a warm round of applause.                                                 AR