Released: 01 December 2008

You'll all be aware that having a good quality, well fitting pouch can make a huge difference to your life and it's possibly something that you've come to take for granted. In some other countries, however, the outlook for ostomists is often quite bleak as Jacqui Doran, a biomedical scientist at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh recently found out.

Also a volunteer with the Remote Area Medical organisation (RAM), Jacqui travels twice yearly to Guyana in South America as part of their women's health team, travelling into remote mountainous, savannah and jungle villages to offer gynaecological screening.

Jacqui said: “Earlier this year, we saw a lady with a huge abdomen mass. We operated on her and removed a 23lb ovarian tumour as well as a secondary tumour that was attached to her colon which had to be completely removed. Our surgeons successfully created an ileostomy and although we performed her surgery for free, she now has to foot the bill for her ileostomy bags. In a country where the average annual salary is less than £800, this is not easy and there was only one ileostomy bag in the country that fitted!

“Unfortunately, her one and only bag burst shortly before we left and her family had simply covered her stoma with a towel, which had left her skin blistered and weeping. On her return to England, Jacqui set out to try and find suitable pouches for the patient and contacted a number of manufacturers to see if they could donate any.
Senior Product Manager, Maria Clifton said: “This story really tugged at our heart strings and we were delighted to have the opportunity to try and make this patient's life a little easier. We are happy to send a regular supply of pouches, scissors so that she can cut the hydrocolloid to fit correctly, and some instructions on how to care for her stoma and we hope that soon she will be able to start enjoying life again.”

Jacqui added: “I am so impressed with Salts for their donation. They were the only company to respond to my request and they well surpassed it by supplying hundreds of bags for our patient. I have email contact from our patient's nephew and she is overjoyed at having the ileostomy bags and has no problems using them at all.”