Fact Sheet.
Because the United States experiences a surplus, and developing nations suffer a shortage of medical supplies, Medical Bridges was created to help bridge the healthcare gap worldwide.
Mission
Medical Bridges, Inc. is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to procuring medical and surgical supplies and equipment for donation to qualified providers of charitable medical care in less developed countries.
History
Dr. Patricia Brock started Medical Bridges in 1997 after a trip to El Salvador where she witnessed and was struck by the country’s incredible lack of basic medical supplies. Accompanied by founding board member, Dr. Peggy Goetz, Dr. Brock returned from this journey determined to address this shortage all too prevalent in the developing world. Armed with the knowledge that an estimated $9 billion in medical surplus is discarded annually, Dr. Brock, along with Dr. Goetz and three other board members established Medical Bridges.
Medical Bridges has:
* Served 80 countries in need
* Distributed over $60 million in supplies and equipment
* Assisted in supplying over nine hundred shipments to mission teams and individuals
* Set up donation programs in hospitals throughout the Houston area
* Guided thousands of volunteers and groups; on average, local volunteers contribute over 1,200 hours a month in packing and sorting work
Contact Information
Warehouse:
2706 Magnet
Houston, Texas 77054
(v.) 713-748-8131
(f.) 713-748-0118
Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 300245
Houston, Texas 77230-0245
www.medicalbridges.org
Staff
Executive Director: Dorothy Bolettieri
Warehouse Manager:Eric Beris
Director of Administration & Hand Carried Coordinator: Aida Alard
Procurement Coordinator & Webmaster:Kira Foken
Logistics Coordinator:Natalia Moreno
Outreach Coordinator:Annette Skinner
Administrative Assistant: Jessica Sedeno
Warehouse Assistant: Martin Okumu
Shipments Sent
MBI distributes material in a variety of ways and records this allocation as a “container shipment” or a “hand-carried shipment”. Container shipments are sent via ocean freight using a commercial freight forwarder. This type of distribution allows for a larger volume to be moved and often carries up to 750-800 boxes of material. Hand-carried shipments are typically transported in anything other than an ocean freight container. Most often they are packed in luggage or trunks that are physically carried into the countries by the requesting group or individual. Regardless of the manner used to get supplies to their destination, material leaving the warehouse is recorded as “a shipment.” For example, trunks traveling with a medical mission team to India are logged as one shipment; equally, a forty-foot container traveling to Nigeria via ocean freight is recorded as one shipment.
