Hospital Sisters Mission Outreach is a medical surplus recovery organization (MSRO) focusing on improving health care access to people in low- and middle income countries (LMIC) through responsible donation of medical supplies, equipment and support services. Mission Outreach exists to strengthen and build health systems in LMIC, to support surgical mission teams and to prevent and recover during a crisis.
Hospital Sisters Mission Outreach Biomedical Engineer Ratish Kumar, M.S, recently shared more information about the organization.
Q: How does your company stand out?
A: Mission Outreach adheres to best practices in medical donations and follows the WHO standards to solicit and provision of medical supplies and equipment donations to LMIC. We are among the very few in the MSRO industry to have a full-time biomedical engineer on staff. My responsibility is to develop and conceptualize the biomedical equipment program with a goal to advance and sustain the biomedical infrastructure in LMIC health systems with quality medical equipment donations and support services.
Q: What is on the horizon for your organization?
A: We are reimagining how we provide support services to our international partners and identify measurable health care outcomes through the donations we provide. In 2023, we established a long-term partnership with St. Joseph hospital in Moshi, Tanzania, part of the Sisters of Our Lady of Kilimanjaro, and committed to equip their current hospital and the new mother/baby hospital which is under construction. Mission Outreach sent the first shipment in February 2024 with equipment and supplies, then later in June, I along with our executive director followed the shipment for on-boarding and installation assistance of equipment and to evaluate the impact of donations. It was a successful visit as we were able to replace some of their old equipment and bring in new equipment that was not available before. We also realized it is just the beginning and a lot more needs to be done in the future. One of the primary goals for me in this project is to establish solid biomedical operations in the hospital by working with their biomedical technician and equipping them with biomedical test equipment, tools, workstation and standard operating procedure. The overall goal for us as an organization is to play a key supporting role to St. Joseph hospital’s vision to reduce the infant mortality rate of the Kilimanjaro region with necessary equipment, supplies and support services.
Q: Is there anything else you would like our readers to know?
A: The theme of our organization is “Global health is local health” – we as an organization are always grateful to our volunteers, product donors, financial donors, our founders for paving us the way to do this global health work. As a biomedical engineer myself, I would like to take this opportunity to tell my clinical engineering community that there is lot that can be done to support our neighbors through responsible medical equipment donations, volunteer your valuable time to support the local nonprofit organization who does global health work, or connect with me to be part of many other projects we do.
For more information, visit mission-outreach.org.
