Phyllis Reader says she became an operating room nurse because it’s in her nature to help others. That desire to help prompted her to join Medical Ministry International in the late 1990s. When she visited Ecuador in 1997 with MMI on her first medical mission, she was appalled at the lack of supplies and equipment available and knew she had to help make a difference.

When she returned to her full-time job at the St. Boniface Hospital, Phyllis started collecting discarded medical supplies, and in 2001 when a fellow nurse posted in Malawi, Africa was in need of supplies for patients, she created International HOPE Canada. Since then, Phyllis has visited 16 developing countries, and while some countries are more desperate than others, she’s seen the need for recycled supplies in all of them.

What is Beauty?
Beauty is having both passion and compassion. When you meet someone who is passionate about something, they have an inner glow about them. Or, on the other side, someone who has an empathetic nature, especially
towards people who are hurting.

“The need for our organization is so huge,” she says. “We’re such a privileged society in North America, we have all the latest technology. But there, they have absolutely nothing. I’ve been fortunate to surround myself with good people that believe in the concept of the organization and it’s really taken off.”

HOPE is run by about 70 volunteers, who last year alone spent over 8,000 hours collecting, packing and sending recycled supplies to impoverished and developing countries. Phyllis says she questions the manufacturing mandates of putting restrictions, like expiry dates or single-use precautions on certain medical equipment, when she knows the products are still sterile and can be put to good use.

“Let’s say we have a box of gloves here that expired in January of 2008—we would just throw it out. But that same box can go to Africa, where they deal with AIDS and hepatitis every day. There, that box of gloves is gold and they’ll wash and reuse a pair of gloves until they’re falling apart,” she says.

Phyllis’s motivation to continue the project comes from the simple fact that she knows she can make a difference in developing countries. But the retired nurse doesn’t limit herself to donating medical supplies—she also works with refugees from Myanmar (formerly Burma), Karen (or Kayin) State on the border of Myanmar and Thailand, and has been to a refugee camp in northwest Thailand four times. In July, Phyllis will be going on her 13th medical mission to Peru, where she says she’ll expose 10 more volunteers to the joy of helping alleviate the pain and suffering of those who have absolutely nothing.

“As you age, there’s an element of wisdom that comes and it’s soul-generated,” she says. “If I can expose more Canadians to what is going on in developing countries, people change. And when you change, I think you’re moved to do something about it.”