This report originally appeared in the November 2009 issue of DOTmed Business News

Health experts estimate that U.S. hospitals, clinics and other healthcare facilities throw out thousands of tons of unused medical products and old medical equipment each year. In many cases, these are products that have been discontinued in order to convert to a newer product, are the unused components of opened procedure packs, or are sample products provided in bulk by vendors.

In many cases the equipment and devices could be in fine condition. Just because a machine is being replaced by the newest technology doesn't mean that it's useless. In fact, it's common for discarded equipment to still have some use left to it and it could be utilized by a clinic in a low-income community, at a hospital in a developing nation or any healthcare facility that cannot otherwise afford it.
Rather than disposing of these items, healthcare facilities should explore options for reuse through surplus resale or charitable donations to organizations in their community or as far away as a developing country on the other side of the globe.

Where to Go?

You might think that once you decide to donate something, it will be easy to find a taker and get it to those who need it most. That's not always the case, but there are plenty of organizations set up to help.

In fact, DOTmed.com offers a long list of companies and organizations that have registered with us as accepting or distributing donated medical equipment (https://www.dotmed.com/services/charity.html), but DOTmed does not endorse any charities and advises that an independent investigation should be done before dealing with any company.




Hospitals of Hope is one organization which has benefitted from associating with DOTmed. For the past 12 years, the charity has been providing medical supplies and equipment to communities in need around the globe. Founder and CEO, Mike Wawrzewski explained, "One success story was a hospital in Brazil where approximately 90 percent of the equipment in it was provided by donors in the U.S."

"Currently, we're focusing on re-equipping a hospital in Liberia which had been looted during the country's 13-year civil war. For the past four months, they haven't had an X-ray machine and they're the referring hospital for the whole country," Wawrzewski said. But, as the organization's name suggests, there's hope. "To date, we've already sent one container with 45 Spacelab Monitors, surgical lights and anesthesia machines. The shipment also included gurneys and hospital beds we received from a hospital contacting us through DOTmed."

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