High-end equipment and materials for medical emergencies

The targeted procurement of materials for the care of seriously ill and injured patients in Ukraine is complex. It requires some expertise, language skills and, above all, persistence. The first step is to clarify what exactly is needed. Given the abundance of equipment and materials now in use in Ukraine, hardly any two pieces of the puzzle fit together. Even the power supply can pose a challenge: US equipment has a 110V power supply and special plugs. Which consumables are available locally? Otherwise very expensive machinery may end up standing around unusable. Who is trained and how, who can operate what? Are there manuals in the right language? Who can repair something if it breaks down? Once this has been clarified, the next step is procurement. The huge quantities of material required incentivise price speculation. Exclusive contracts, hoarding, supply bottlenecks, customs regulations - all of this makes almost detective-like research a perequisite to obtain the right goods at realistic prices. We handle the donations given to us with utmost care and we go to great lengths to buy as economically as reasonably possible. In this example, we managed to score an oxygen concentrator from US Army stocks that makes the rescue teams independent of often hard to come by cylinder filling. After a long back and forth, we were finally able to have it deliverd to us and then (as always free of charge) to Ukraine. The second example is the so-called IT clanps, a device for bleeding control that still works when other devices are no longer effective. If it is available, a seriously injured patient has a chance of survival, otherwise they might not.