You’ve probably heard of the medical service trips International Health & Medicine leads to underdeveloped areas around the world.  This year is no different as almost 70 people will be headed to Jamaica and Nicaragua, as well as a local Native American Reservation.  Students from COM, CON, COP, COPH, and SAPH will give up their spring break to work in the heat, bugs, and extreme poverty to treat the citizens in these areas, which often lack access to even the most basic medical care.  Thousands of people are treated each year while students and staff gain a meaningful cultural and medical experience.

Did you know our volunteers need supplies and equipment to take with them to Jamaica and Nicaragua?

Basic items like band-aids & gauze, vitamins, and even medication are needed.  Health care workers often don’t have lab coats or protective equipment, don’t have equipment to help them diagnose the malady, and may still be learning from outdated books.

In order to provide extraordinary care and cutting edge research, we often upgrade equipment but the old versions still work.  But those models are still far more advanced than many of the areas they visit have.  In some cases this can apply to the 2000 version or the 1980 version.

Instead of sending these items to surplus, consider sending them to help patients in other countries receive a higher standard of care.  Don’t have equipment, how about supplies?

Here’s what you need to know:

• All medical supplies, medications, and ointments need to be unopened and non-expired.
• Unopened/non-expired toothpaste and toothbrushes are always welcome.
• Non-prescription medications and other over the counter items are needed, everything from anti-biotic creams and anti-fungals, to pain meds and vitamins.
• Medical/teaching books are welcome, as long as they aren’t volumes—volunteers have to carry them down there!
• Equipment must be in working condition. If you have instruction manuals, include them.
• Equipment cannot be too high tech or require a lot of hard to get supplies—these countries don’t have the infrastructure to support it.

Don’t know what to do with you old lab coat once you get your newly branded one?  They need those too!  Just remove the UNMC/TNMC/UNMCP patch and the embroidery so no one can pretend to be you.

Have items to donate?  Want to check on a supply or piece of equipment first?  Contact Sara Pirtle at sepirtle@unmc.edu or 559-2924.

Plastic water bottles are terrible.  There, I said it.  Don’t get me wrong, they are convenient and hydration is important, but the bottles are terrible.

Did you know:

• It takes 17 million barrels of oil to make the bottles to meet America’s annual bottled water consumption. That’s enough to fuel more than 1 million cars for a year!
• That same process also emits 2.5 million tons of CO2.
• Bottled water is 3,000% more expensive per gallon than tap water.
• The federal government requires far more rigorous and frequent safety testing of municipal drinking water. Bottled water generally is no cleaner, safer, or healthier than tap water.
• Up to 50% of all bottled water comes straight from the tap—no extra filtering.
• Bottled water samples have been shown to contain phthalates, mold, microbes, benzene, trihalomethanes, and arsenic.
• If you leave that plastic bottle in your hot car it gets worse. The heat helps to leach synthetic chemicals which have been linked to cancer and it promotes bacterial growth that can be passed on to you and negatively affect your health.
• Only 14% of plastic water bottles get recycled. That mean 86% go to the landfill or become litter.

And none of these stats pertain to other plastic bottle beverages—when you consider pop, juice, and other drinks, the effect is staggering.

But wait there’s more!

The world spends more than $100 billion on bottled water a year which gives some corporations incredible power.  They work through governments to privatize water sources.  This is so prevalent it’s contributing to worldwide water scarcity.  These corporations and some governments make money while the poorest citizens are left without a basic human necessity.  Occupants of third-world countries may be forced to walk for a day to get water clean enough to drink, and we are affected too.  Companies are taking water from streams and springs, even in drought stricken areas, draining crucial resources and leading to increased pollution.

So, what can you do?

• Don’t buy anything in plastic bottles.
• Instead, buy a reusable bottle and fill it with good ol’ tap water! Buy a filter if you need to.
• Order carafes of water with reusable glasses at your next event.
• Educate yourself and others, starting with this video.