Product Donations
Baxter helps address the challenge of access to healthcare worldwide through product donations. In 2006, the company donated and shipped more than $14.8 million in products to help people in need in 44 countries worldwide (see map ).
Baxter’s Global Product Donation Policy guides the company’s efforts in this area to ensure that all donations are appropriate, legal and as effective as possible. The policy covers areas such as regulatory requirements, licensing, expiration and dating, accounting and tax laws, and export requirements.
Baxter donates products that have been requested specifically by recipient organizations to respond to critical needs. Baxter’s Community Relations team manages the donations process, working with supply chain managers and others within the company to identify opportunities to donate products, matching availability of inventory within the company to current need.
Baxter capitalizes on the global scale of its supply chain as one means to deliver donations. For example, donations headed for Romania may be provided by European distribution facilities.
Baxter also works with international relief organizations to expand its reach and maximize its impact. In 2006, Baxter continued its longstanding relationship with AmeriCares, the international disaster-relief and humanitarian aid organization, which airlifts critical shipments to areas suffering humanitarian crises due to natural disasters or political strife. AmeriCares shipped more than $10 million worth of critical Baxter products during 2006.
Baxter also strengthened its relationship with another aid organization, California-based Direct Relief International, a non-profit, non-sectarian humanitarian assistance organization with a focus on sustainable health initiatives in Africa.
Baxter’s product donations benefit the company as well as the recipient, supporting Baxter’s reputation as a strong corporate citizen. Additionally, in some cases donating products such as alcohol preparatory pads, which if destroyed might otherwise be classified as hazardous waste, can help Baxter reduce its waste generation while providing critically needed products to charity organizations.
Example Product Donations in 2006
Baxter product donations improved access to healthcare worldwide during 2006. The largest donation in terms of volume and value to one aid organization was more than 280,000 doses of the company’s NeisVac-C vaccine, a conjugated meningococcal group C vaccine, to help complete the inoculation of the nearly 500,000 earthquake victims at risk of contracting meningitis in Kashmir (see case study).
Additional highlights of Baxter’s global product donations include:
- Bangladesh – Baxter donated products to the Marie Stopes Society, a non-governmental organization that improves the reproductive health of people living in urban areas of the country through 64 clinics and mini-clinics;
- Eastern Africa – Baxter provided antibiotics, saline, dextrose and other products to flood victims in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia to treat cholera, typhoid and dysentery;
- El Salvador – To improve the quality of care provided by dedicated but under-equipped physicians, Baxter donated medicines and medical supplies to the Salvadorian Foundation to benefit thousands of poor families;
- Indonesia – Intravenous (IV) solutions and administration sets and nutritional supplements donated by Baxter helped victims of the Central Java earthquake, which killed more than 5,700 people, injured nearly 38,000 and destroyed nearly 140,000 homes; and
- Romania – Baxter BioScience donated Factor VIII, which hemophilia patients use for blood clotting, to a summer camp in the town of Venus where patients learn to manage their disease.
