A crane (blue vehicle and hoist, top right) was contracted to help unload the container.

Staff and volunteers of Puente de Solidaridad were up early to meet the semi-trailer backing up to our Cochabamba warehouse to deliver our latest 40’ container of medical and surgical supplies on June 19. The container departed just 34 days earlier from the warehouse of our partners, Hospital Sisters Mission Outreach (HSMO), in Springfield, Illinois. It traveled by road to St. Louis, MO, and then by train to Newark, NJ, before setting sail southward through the Panama Canal and down the western flank of South America to the port of Arica, Chile. Bolivia’s landlocked geography adds one more challenge to the country’s ability to access goods from around the world, as it must rely on the goodwill of Chile for the passage of maritime shipments. After our customs and shipping agents completed paperwork in Arica, the container was cleared for its final 3-day trek along cold and winding roads over the Andes mountains.

Many of the supplies in the container are earmarked for our four surgical programs, but others are available to support the essential services provided at hospitals across the country. Before departure, each item was barcoded and registered in the cloud-based inventory system we share with Puente de Solidaridad. Thanks to this collaborative tool, Puente de Solidaridad could immediately proceed with the orderly distribution of supplies. Within days, shipments were dispatched to hospitals in every cardinal direction – as far away as the departments of Beni (to the north), Tarija (to the south), Santa Cruz (to the east), and La Paz (to the west).

This is the 14th shipment made possible since 2006 with support from HSMO. In addition to managing loading logistics, HSMO donated the majority of contents, ranging from sutures and surgical staplers to monitors and airways. Other donations came from veteran missioners whose experience operating in Bolivia inspires and informs their efforts to gather the specific anesthesia and surgery materials our partners need. These donors include anesthesiologists Dr. George Lederhaas and Dr. Dan Yousif, neurosurgeons Dr. Barbara Lazio and Dr. John Weaver, and others. Additional supplies were donated by foundations, including the Miga Solutions Foundation and Friends of Ostomates Worldwide. Funding for the container was made possible by our many generous donors whose gifts support shipping and other related costs.

Surgical programs restocked!