A shipment of used equipment and supplies that would have been dumped or incinerated in Bermuda will be put to good use in Uganda. The recycling project gives credence to the adage ‘one man’s trash is another man’s treasure’.

The Royal Gazette first reported last November that former King Edward VII Memorial Hospital physiotherapist, Mary McCabe, was hoping to match a hospital in Kakira, Uganda with KEMH for used casts from the fracture clinic.

Since that time the project has grown and last week the fruits were presented to Ms McCabe by hospital management and staff. Staff from maternity, Education Services, the Fracture Clinic and hyperbaric medicine gathered together medical supplies that were either used or out of date.

This included wheelchairs, crutches, canes and other medical supplies. In addition, staff donated sheets, towels and blankets from their homes to be sent as well. Ms McCabe was touched when she visited Kakira Hospital a few years ago.

It serves the needs of over 6,000 employees at a sugar plantation and is staffed by three doctors, a few nurses, a physiotherapist, a radiographer and two lab personnel. Ms McCabe said despite challenges of limited medicines, equipment and other resources, the medical professionals at Kakira Hospital do their best to serve their patients.

Ms McCabe has visited Kakira Hospital several times. On her last visit she was taken by the Chief Medical Officer around the various wards of the hospital to get an idea of the supplies required. She saw a 24-year-old amputee who had been waiting more than a year for a prosthetic leg and could not return home to his family in northern Uganda; a young man suffering burns on 40 percent of his body without access to dressings or IV drips; a cane cutter with deep lacerations to his thigh but no access to sutures.

There were three isolation wards but no barrier nursing equipment available. She said the matron stressed the need for masks, gloves and aprons — anything to help protect the staff from infection.

At the presentation, Ms McCabe said: “The medical staff at Kakira and the people they serve will be grateful for the kind assistance and generosity of people in Bermuda. This equipment will make a tremendous difference to patient care at Kakira. I appreciate the support I have received from everyone involved in this project.”