During the summer of 2020, I volunteered at MedShare, a nonprofit organization that collects surplus medical supplies, sorts and repackages them, and ships them to low-income countries. MedShare tackles the important health issues of international inequality and environmentalism. International inequality is in large part the result of colonialism’s lingering legacy; countries that have been historically wronged continue to experience less economic growth to this day, and as a result, worse health outcomes. Low-income countries suffer weaker healthcare systems than high-income countries, in combination with facing issues such as malnutrition, lack of sanitation/access to clean drinking water, and communicable diseases. This leads to staggering disparities in health outcomes across the world. For example, in 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that the child mortality rate of the WHO Africa Region (74/1000) was nine times higher than that of the WHO European Region (8/1000) (Child Mortality, World Health Organization).

Simultaneously, high-income countries generally live in a state of surplus, which leads to unnecessary waste. In particular, healthcare facilities in the US are some of the largest sources of waste. Additionally, much of this waste is toxic or radioactive, exacerbating the negative impact on the environment. According to the WHO, 15% of healthcare-related waste is considered hazardous (Health-Care Waste, World Health Organization). By helping redistribute excess medical supplies, which would ordinarily end up in landfills, to communities in desperate need of them, MedShare is attempting to combat the critical health problems of international inequality and environmentalism.

MedShare is a non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to collecting excess medical supplies and redistributing them to people in need. MedShare was founded in 1998 in Georgia but has since expanded to have distribution centers in both the San Francisco Bay Area and New York. According to MedShare’s website, during their approximately 20-year campaign, they have delivered around $238 million worth of medical supplies to 117 countries, ultimately saving around 26 million pounds of medical supplies from the landfill (About Us, MedShare).

I volunteered at MedShare’s Western Region Distribution Center in San Leandro, California. The majority of my time volunteering was spent working on sorting and repackaging medical supplies. I enjoyed working alongside (in a socially-distanced fashion) other volunteers, many of whom were retired healthcare professionals. We would typically open boxes from donation pallets and check their contents. Depending on what was in the box, there were different protocols. If the contents of the box were ready for shipment as is, we would make a label and bring it to the boxing area. If the contents of the box were usable but required further sorting down the line, we would sort it into general medical categories. Some examples of categories include breathing and anesthesia, gauze, IV, and nursing aid. If the contents of the box were unfortunately unable to be shipped, we would properly dispose of them in either the trash, recycling, or sharps bin. Finally, sometimes when the boxing station could not keep up with the number of boxes coming in, we would help out by using a tape gun to seal boxes before inventorying them.