A charitable way to recycle Kingston Hospital’s walking aids which are deemed beyond repair, at not additional cost to the trust
Kingston Hospital has been donating unwanted walking aids which are no longer economically viable for repair to hospitals and charities in Yemen. These are aids that cannot be given out to Kingston Hospital patients and would otherwise end up in recycling bins and skips.
Migrant Advocacy Service, formerly Independent Yemen Group, is based in Kingston upon Thames, and has worked with Kingston Hospital to find a positive use for a small part of the waste produced by the hospital. Working with the physio and stores departments and with the help of community volunteers, we have been able to collect, sort and ship unusable walking aids around 4-5 times a year. Once they arrive in Aden port, they are sent to clinics, hospitals and homes for the elderly or disabled in southern parts of Yemen, where the items are highly valued and used by people who are in desperate need of them to help them manage their day to day lives better. They don’t mind if they aren’t new or are scratched or missing a rubber end or other minor item - these are things that are made good once they have been received and assessed by local volunteers.
Since 2015, there has been even more demand in Yemen for aids to treat people injured by gunfire and landmines, many of whom are just children. All the items we have sent have been given a new lease of life and saved from being scrapped.
Late in 2023, we made our collection of walking aids from the hospital on behalf of people affected by the devastating earthquakes that struck Morocco - a natural disaster which touched the lives of many members of Kingston’s Moroccan community that we work with.
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