Dr Michael Hart is from District 7475 in New Jersey USA. In 2020, just as COVID was taking hold, District 7475 and our Club partnered in three Global grants to supply 10 ventilators and one critical care bed to make a difference to the New Jersey community. This is an update on how the project went: Over to Dr Michael Hart.
When I called the 2 local hospitals- RWJ and Trinitas- and asked what did they need to most - they both said ventilators.
They both had ventilators on order but did not know how they were going to pay for them.
Actually, new ventilators cost about $100,000 each. They were ordering a bunch of refurbished ventilators for only about $10,000 each. My District Governor liked it that we were getting a discount, and could spread out dollars farther. We ended up buying 10 ventilators between the two hospital systems.
They are both part of very large hospital systems which share their equipment, so we were not helping just one locality, but a wide section of our state.
New Jersey has a population of 9 million, and probably 5 million live in our district of northern NJ. It takes about an hour to drive across the state, and about 3 hours to drive the length, so we are densely populated.
For the third Global Grant- Overlook wanted a high tech hospital bed which cost $30,000. They are part of a large hospital system also, but did not need ventilators. They are becoming a regional trauma center and need equipment for that.
So, the 3 GG's totalled about $130,000. We bought 3 ventilators for one hospital and 7 for the other.
Unfortunately, early on, about 80% of the patients on ventilators ended up passing away, but you can see from the Overlook letter that they did save 1,400 patients' lives. As time passed, they were able to develop treatments which had a much higher survival rate, including a combination of medications. Initially, they thought it was a respiratory disease. But after about a year, they realized that it was a disease of the blood, which manifested in the lungs because the blood became like a sludge and would not circulate well and carry the oxygen. Now the survival rate is quite high.
The hospital bed we provided to Overlook probably had a more effective rate of saving lives, short term, and should last for 10 years, and save many trauma victims over the years.
Did it make a difference? Yes, to some degree., and more over time.
David- Your support meant a lot. We could not have done it without you.
