Adelaide's old hospital equipment to benefit 24 countries in need

PHOTO: Furniture and medical equipment from the old Royal Adelaide Hospital will be shipped abroad. (ABC News: Sarah Hancock)
By Sarah Hancock – ABC News Adelaide

Dozens of shipping containers of surplus medical equipment from the old Royal Adelaide Hospital are now on their way to developing countries.

The supplies range from old beds and other furniture to life-saving medical devices, and are being donated to 24 countries, including Australia's near-neighbour Papua New Guinea.

Shila Paia, who was born there, has helped raise thousands of dollars to allow some of the equipment to be shipped to PNG from Adelaide.

PHOTO: Shila Paia says even simple medical supplies are luxuries to PNG health workers. (ABC News: Sarah Hancock)

"The access to services isn't there, the basic primary health care isn't there — women are deprived, they are dying giving birth and children are dying," she said of PNG's dire lack of health services.

"This is going to make a lot of difference. Simple things like syringes are going to make a lot of difference.

"[Sometimes] a mother could be taking her child for immunisation to a clinic and the child could miss out just because there is no syringe there."

Ms Paia said simple items could make a big difference.

PHOTO: PNG health care is often simple, such as this room where women give birth. (Supplied: Soil Child)

"Most of the time we take for granted a lot of things, even simple things like gloves for example, we take it for granted here [in Australia]," she said.

It will take six weeks for the containers destined for PNG to arrive there, and a team of doctors and nurses from Adelaide will help teach local health workers how to install and use some of the more complex machines.

Anaesthetist Yasmin Endlich is looking forward to her trip north.

“I want to be there when that container arrives. I want to be able to show the people how to set the equipment up and how to use it safely," she said.

"It's extremely hard to look at all this stuff that is coming out of the old Royal Adelaide Hospital, not knowing what it is and where it should go."

About 30 charity groups and hundreds of volunteers have worked hard to clear out thousands of items from the former hospital site in the Adelaide CBD.

Among other countries to benefit are Cambodia, Ghana, Kurdistan, Mongolia, Sierra Leone, Timor Leste and Uganda.

Go to this link for more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-01/surplus-royal-adelaide-hospital-equipment-for-png/9385148