Carleton and a Canadian philanthropist have teamed up to provide patients in underfunded rural African hospitals with a place to get a good night’s sleep.
Dave Smith, founder of the Dave Smith Youth Treatment Centre in Ottawa, is the man behind the donation project. He received an honorary law degree from Carleton in 2006.
“If somebody has an operation of any kind, how do you expect him or her to recover sleeping on a piece of cardboard because they don’t have enough beds in the clinics or in the hospitals?” he asked.
Smith will deliver the beds to various rural locations across the African continent. Smith said a total of 370 beds were donated by the school’s Housing and Residence Life Services and came from recently renovated residence rooms.
“These beds Carleton donated are going to make a huge difference in those people’s lives because they are the exact size of a hospital bed and they’re absolutely perfect,” Smith said.
His story starts back in 2005 in Angola. He flew an hour and a half into a rural area where a priest picked him up in a jeep at the local airport. They then started touring the countryside together.
“I found that if they had two bottles of aspirin in these rural areas they were lucky,” Smith said. He added his travels have prompted him to concentrate on rural areas in need of aid all around the world, including here in Canada.
He said he donated an ambulance to a rural town in Ethiopia a few months ago to use instead of a pickup truck the locals were using at the time.
Smith said he makes sure donations are heading where they are most needed. One shipment costs around $6,000 to $7,000 dollars, which is usually paid for by governments or businesses, according to Smith.
His brother-in-law is an electrician at Carleton who informed Smith immediately about the opportunity once word of the beds got out. Smith called Chad McKenzie, the manager of residence maintenance on campus, and told him about his charity work. Rather than the beds going to the garbage, Smith picked them up and is currently preparing them for shipment.
“Chad was overwhelmed, because normally if no one accepts them they go into the landfill, and that should never happen. I have a great use for them, because they were all in good shape,” Smith said.
The donation has hit a positive note with some Carleton students. Robin Newman-Grigg, a master’s student in international affairs, said Smith’s work is truly inspirational.
“It shows there’s actually good work being done in the world, specifically here in Ottawa, and that’s great,” he said.
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