Helping hand: Valley volunteers sending medical supplies to Nepal
May 14, 2015, 1:57 PM | Updated: 1:57 pm
TEMPE, Arizona — A Valley group is sending medical supplies to help Nepal with recovery efforts after the small Asian country was hit with two devastating earthquakes.
About 30 volunteers worked Thursday to pack a 40-foot shipping container with medical supplies donated to Project CURE by Dignity Health.
Katie Mabardy, executive director of Project CURE in Phoenix, said about $300,000 worth of medical supplies will be packed into the container.
“Face masks, disinfectant — the things that people in the healthcare community use maybe once and then throw away,” she said.
Mabardy said surgical supplies are also being sent.
“We’re sending a lot of biomedical equipment and surgical kits, and things that the surgeons and doctors and nurses need there to actually perform surgeries,” she said.
About 8,100 people were killed and thousands injured when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck the area on April 25.
“All the patients impacted by these supplies will be treated for free,” she said.
Mabardy said the coming weeks will be a critical time for the country as much of the initial response and emergency efforts will begin to leave as Nepal stabilizes.
“We’re going to start to show up when a lot of the disaster relief organizations begin to leave because the immediate needs are met,” she said.
The container will take about eight weeks to arrive in Nepal.
