About 60 miles south of San Jose, California, is the small city of Salinas. With around 150,000 residents, this diverse city boasts such events as the Steinbeck Festival, the California Rodeo, and now, a sizable philanthropic donation.

The Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital Foundation donated two 12-lead defibrillators, three training manikins, airway devices and various other medical equipment to the Salinas Rural Fire District. The defibrillators are a lifesaving tool that the department has put to immediate use since the donation was made almost a month ago.

“Time is critical in any emergency, but is especially important when a person is having a heart attack,” said Dr. Robert Morris, president of the board of directors of the Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System. “The sooner a heart attack victim is treated, the greater the chances of survival. We are proud to be working with the experienced team of the Salinas Rural Fire District in bringing this life-saving care to more people in our region.”

Once cardiac arrest begins, a patient’s chances of survival decrease by 10 percent each minute until medical care corrects the heart rhythm or restores breathing. Salinas Rural Fire Chief Michael Urquides says the donated equipment has already saved lives in the area.

While many of us spend our summer vacations working on our tans, nurse anesthetist Mary Dudley has dedicated her free time to making thousands of children around the world smile.

Since her first medical mission in 2000, Dudley has traveled 15 times to some of the poorest counties in the world, treating orphans, training doctors and assisting in surgical operations for cleft lips and palettes. Although these birth defects are not considered life-threatening conditions, they can affect speech and often force children to be held back in school.

“These kids are ostracized,” Dudley said. “They’re abused and used by other people. They’ll walk around wearing a scarf over their face.”

On her latest trip to Ethiopia, Dudley and her crew performed cleft lip and palette surgeries on 200 of the 900 patients seeking treatment. The remaining 700 untreated patients were given slips of paper ensuring their place in line for surgery next year.

On five of her mission trips, the crew received grants to cover expenses, but for the other 10 Dudley paid for her own plane tickets, room and board. The necessary medical equipment often comes from foreign hospitals, such as the anesthesia equipment Dudley used in Ethiopia that came from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

The Foundation for Rehabilitation Equipment & Endowment (FREE) of Lynchburg, Va., recently received two grants that will help continue the foundation’s mission.

The grants — $20,000 from the Centra Health Foundation and $7,500 from the Greater Lynchburg Community Trust — will be allocated to expand the current offering of the nonprofit agency. FREE provides medical equipment, free of charge, to people who couldn’t otherwise afford it.

Although the nonprofit takes monetary donations, they also gladly accept donations in the form of durable medical equipment. Donations of equipment including bath chairs, hospital beds, wheelchairs and transfer-to-tub equipment are cleaned and repaired as needed.

Similar nonprofits exist all over the nation. Project MEND is one such nonprofit here in Texas, with locations in Houston and San Antonio. Aria Medical partnered with BatteriesPlus in late 2006 to supply Project MEND with two electric wheelchairs powered by brand new batteries from our local franchised BatteriesPlus location. Read all about it here.

European pharmaceutical giant GlaxoKlineSmith announced today it will donate 50 million doses of its new “pre-pandemic” bird flu vaccine to a global stockpile.

The H5N1 bird flu virus has already killed about 190 people. While H5N1 remains mainly a virus of birds, scientists say it is the most likely source of the next global flu pandemic in humans, since it may soon mutate into a form that is transmitted easily from person to person.

The World Health Organization (WHO) started the vaccine stockpile to help poorer nations in case of a global pandemic. The United States, as well as a few other countries, have already signed up to receive vaccines as they become available.

Read the full story here.

Medtronic, Inc. announced yesterday that David Etzwiler has been named vice president of community affairs and executive director of the Medtronic Foundation. Etzwiler previously served as senior director of the Medtronic Foundation and government affairs.

Medtronic manufactures medical technology products such as AEDs and defibrillators. Last year, the company’s total giving exceeded $47.3 million in Medtronic Foundation grants, cash contributions and medical device donations.

Read the full story here.