MUSC Donates Medical Supplies, Equipment to Sierra Leone Hospital

On Wednesday, May 24, 2023, MUSC staff loaded a 40-foot shipping container full of surplus medical equipment and supplies ahead of its transatlantic trek to Mercy Hospital, a 50-bed hospital in Bo, Sierra Leone. The donated equipment, which will in days begin its 4,600-mile trek to the west African country, is the university’s largest gift of supplies to the African medical facility, a relationship that begin in 2018.

Mercy Hospital, which also features two operating room suites, treats about 10,000 patients per year, in addition to outreach services to 50 villages with a focus on maternal and infant care and nutrition. Currently, the clinicians onsite at Mercy use mobile phones for light in operating rooms, boil their surgical instruments, and lack other critical equipment.

The MUSC donation shipment includes operating room lights, an autoclave and Bovie surgical instrument, a water purifier, stretchers, patient monitors, automated external defibrillators, surgical instruments, wheelchairs, over-bed tables, sterile processing carts, bedside commodes, hospital bassinets and approximately 10 pallets of various personal protective equipment.

Within days, the shipment will leave the Port of Charleston, eventually arriving to African land at the Port of Freetown in Sierra Leone.

To view additional images of the shipment, please click here to visit our Flickr gallery.