Dr. Georgine Lamvu-Schooler grew up spending time with her mother, a nurse, in hospitals in her native Romania and in other developing nations. She knows how few supplies some medical facilities have to work with. Doctors working there have minimal supplies and sometimes patients have to bring their own sutures and medicines.
Physicians have to rewash disposable gloves, surgical gowns and gauze.
However, in a developing nation, these supplies could make a real difference and could save lives. She took a proposal for the project to the hospital's legal department, then to the infectious disease department and the nursing manager. In the end, it was agreed that the project could proceed if donated items had not touched patients and could not be sterilized and used at the hospital. Doctors, operating room nurses and volunteers were told what to collect and how to collect it, as well as what needed to be re-sterilized. For the past six months or so, collection bins have been strategically placed around operating rooms.