For the past 75 years, Direct Relief has worked extensively around the world to help address gaps in access to required healthcare. Direct Relief’s focus is on helping marginalized countries whose populations are underserved, as it has historically helped 136 countries. This is accomplished through the four pillars of Direct Relief’s humanitarian programs, including: Disaster Preparedness & Response, Sustainable power related to climate and health via its Power for Health initiative, and Access to Medicines & Healthcare.
According to the World Bank, more than 44% of the world’s population (3.5 billion people) exist on very low incomes and 9% (712 million people) live in extreme poverty. There unfortunately exist tremendous gaps in access to all types of medicines required for good health, as very few developing countries are able to successfully provide even the basic medical necessities. Direct Relief works with provider partners (hospitals, clinics, specialty institutes, foundations, Ministries of Health) in lower income countries and over the past decade has provided over $15 billion USD worth of donated medical products to its partner treating facilities (all completely free of charge).
Information on Direct Relief’s global work can be found below for each of its programmatic pillars:
DISASTER PREPAREDNESS & RESPONSE:
Direct Relief is the US’s largest provider to global medical assistance, and it responds to all major natural disasters (earthquakes, typhoons, tsunamis, wildfires, flooding, mudslides, etc.), emergencies (conflicts and wars, explosions, severe infectious disease outbreaks, etc.), as well as countries in on-going crisis (collapse of financial system, ineffective public healthcare system, etc.).
Direct Relief has built a strong overseas network of international organizations (ASEAN Humanitarian Assistance Center, PAHO, Africa CDC, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, the Society of Critical Care Medicines, International Diabetes Federation, the International Society of Nephrology, etc.) that it coordinates with to more comprehensively address these disasters, emergencies, and on-going crisis.
Direct Relief maintains a stockpile of essential medical and emergency products that can be shipped immediately after a disaster or emergency, as the need and location evolve from expected to actual impact and evacuation zones. It also has a strong network of over 100 global companies with pharmaceutical, medical technology, and emergency related products in which it can request donations of the specific items that relate to each situation.
Direct Relief has provided hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of medical products to support the acute needs of patients after a disaster or emergency situation. Vulnerable communities become even more vulnerable during disasters, as it is often the same marginalized communities whose residents are not financially able to evacuate which are the last to regain electricity after a storm. In addition to these immediate and acute needs, Direct Relief also helps to rebuild the health infrastructure of impacted communities in a resilient manner, so they are more able to withstand future disasters.
SUSTAINABILITY AT THE INTERSECTION OF CLIMATE AND HEALTH:
Direct Relief’s resiliency work – including its Power for Health initiative - is resulting in significant impact around climate, the environment and health. Direct Relief has implemented resilient power at its own facility in Santa Barbara (the largest micro-grid at a US non-profit facility, it includes 1,000 solar panels and a large Tesla backup battery system) and over 50 safety net clinics across the US and Puerto Rico (with facilities having completed solar panels / backup battery projects). In addition, it has implemented numerous project across the global valued at over $15 million in India, Ukraine, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Sierra Leon, Liberia, The Gambia, Jamaica, etc.
Direct Relief’s resiliency projects save future resources:
- Reduced electric capacity produced from fossil fuels
- Significant reduction in electric costs
- Reduced loss of medicines and vaccines requiring refrigeration
- Reduced loss of medical equipment requiring continuous power source for maintaining calibration
- Decreased shutdowns and loss of continuous operations during disasters
The needs are significant - Direct Relief is seeking collaboration to expand its current health work around sustainable power and cold-chain capacity building in the developing world.
ACCESS TO MEDICINE AND HEALTHCARE:
Direct Relief is unique among charities to be fully licensed to store, handle, ship and distribute prescription pharmaceuticals. It has extensive expertise in Rx supply chain and logistics, including handling more complex innovative medicines - many of which require cold-chain (2° – 8° C) storage, handling and distribution. It also has unique expertise in logistics to be able to validate the shipping lanes in very remote and primitive countries in which there are no commercial distribution given the lack of resources within the country.
Over the past 15 years, Direct Relief has provided more than $15 billion dollars’ worth of donated medical products to help those that lack access to treatments. In its past fiscal year, Direct Relief provided more than 530 million defined daily doses of Rx medicines to its extensive overseas network of provider partners in 80+ countries. Direct Relief’s largest expensive around providing so much specialized and often life-saving therapies and medical technology is its costs around logistics and shipping. Your help will support covering these ever increasing expenses that Direct Relief much cover in order to enable philanthropic access to these medical products.
Your support will be used where needed best within Direct Relief’s overseas humanitarian programs. Together we are working to support those in developing countries to live in dignity and to overcome the healthcare gaps that they and their countries currently face.
For more on Direct Relief, please visit its website and Newsfeed at www.DirectRelief.org
Thank you for being a part of Direct Relief!
