How you can be a medical Good Samaritan — it’s easy and (almost) pain-free, and you get benefits too

In this season of goodwill, gratitude, and giving, it’s worth considering that both friends and strangers can have medical needs that we can ease with little pain or inconvenience to ourselves. Here’s a sampling of five ways to help others.

And by the way, did you know that research shows that being generous to others  can have health benefits for those who give?  All the more reason to read our list below.

This one may not be literally painless, but it’s certainly pain-light, and it can literally save someone’s life.

Consider the need. As the American Red Cross advises, “every 2 seconds someone in the U.S. needs blood and or platelets. Approximately 36,000 units of red blood cells are needed every day in the U. S.” But insufficient numbers of Good Samaritans give blood and do so regularly, leaving the nation’s health care system — and countless patients across the country — in constant worry about supplies.  

Who are these needy patients? Among others: Anyone involved in a bad vehicle wreck or other trauma,  those who must undergo major surgery and patients with chronic illnesses, including cancers.

Not everyone may give blood, and there are eligibility requirements to safeguard donors and the supply. Hospitals, clinics, and blood-banking institutions, with a boost from supporting charitable organizations, try to make the process as easy, simple, and convenient as possible. Those who donate, the Red Cross emphasizes, give a special gift, as “blood and platelets cannot be manufactured; they can only come from volunteer donors,” and “one donation can potentially save up to three lives.”

For more information on donating blood, please click here.

Television satirist John Oliver has done it, as has political activist Stacey Abrams. So, too, have churches and charities nationwide. They have recognized that medical debt can be crushing and unfair, and they have worked with a nonprofit organization that is receiving wider attention for its efforts to wipe out this shame of the U.S. health care system.

Despite the efforts exerted too often by hospitals and other medical providers to squeeze patients — especially the poor, working poor, and uninsured or underinsured — for every penny they possess, collection efforts frequently leave a mountain of unpaid and unpayable debt for patients and their families. That leaves debt collectors to aggregate, buy, and sell medical debt with what can be cruel abandon for onetime patients who find these bankrupting obligations hanging over their lives.

Enter RIP Medical Debt, a New York-based 5013(c) founded, yes, by two former debt-collection executives.

They have shown how gifts from the charitable can wipe out substantial medical debts, with a $100 contribution, for example, eliminating $10,000 in others’ obligations. Abrams persuaded a political action committee to donate $1.34 million to RIP, which then wiped out $212 million in medical debts owed by 108,000 residents of five southern states. Oliver chronicled how his show’s $60,000 donation wiped out $14.9 million in medical debt. RIP says it has wiped out $5 billion in medical debt. Alas, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association — which also detailed more about this area of financial nightmares — reported that the amount of medical debt turned over to collection agencies alone exceeded $140 billion, twice as much as experts previously had estimated.

For more information on RIP Medical Debt, please click here.

Big Pharma inundates the nation with its products. In just one area, narcotic pain pills, the largest makers “saturat[ed] the country with 76 billion oxycodone and hydrocodone pain pills from 2006 through 2012,” the Washington Post has reported. The number of prescriptions filled by U.S. patients for children and adults increased 85% between 1997 and 2016, even as the population rose just 21%, Consumer Reports has found. This drug tsunami has created a disposal nightmare with serious environmental and health and public safety consequences, experts say, noting that pharmaceuticals have become a risky pollutant of our water.

When patients no longer need prescription meds, they are urged not to dump them in the sink, flush them away, or toss them out with the household trash. Instead, they can participate in periodic drug “take back” or return programs, many run in cooperation with pharmacies that can assist in getting rid of meds. In specific circumstances (e.g., after the death of patients in hospitals or in nursing homes, patients and their loved ones may donate unused, unopened prescription meds — notably costly cancer drugs and other therapeutics — under “repository” programs created by law in many states. These efforts typically bar drugs on federal “controlled substance” lists (e.g., opioid painkillers).

For more information on Virginia’s program, please click here, as well as here. For Maryland’s program, please click here. And for information on efforts by the nonprofit SIRIUM, please click here.

In too many kitchens, dens, and home offices, an entire drawer is devote  to optical relics — used, undamaged prescription eyeglasses, nonprescription reading glasses, glasses frames, even unopened contact lenses.

These discards could provide life-changing aid to the needy, in this country and globally. As the news site MedPageToday described it:

“Many people throughout the world do not have access to the vision care that they need. The World Health Organization (WHO) says that 2.2 billion people globally have near or distance vision impairment, and that this figure is higher in low- or middle-income countries than in high-income countries. A 2012 study highlights that, even in the United States, many people cannot afford eyeglasses … Research shows that not seeing clearly can negatively affect a person’s independence, cognition, and mental health, while increasing the risk of injury.”

Talk to your ophthalmologist, optician, or their staff about the many places and charities that accept and facilitate donations of vision items. These include well-known providers — including Warby Parker, David Kind, Walmart, and LensCrafters — and organizations like the Lions Club International.

Similar initiatives exist for donating unused and unwanted hearing aids, which can benefit those in need in this country and abroad.

For more information on eye wear donation, please click here for a MedPageToday report with a bevy of helpful hyperlinks. For more information on donating hearing aids, please click here for a VeryWell article with hyperlinks.

For many people in this graying nation, especially those hearing about the decluttering ideas of Japanese tidying guru Marie Kondo, this will be a season of not only decking the halls but also clearing the decks of unused or unwanted items. Consider whether it  is time for durable medical items in good condition to be pulled out of storage and donated for better use. These products might include, as one organization describes it, “any type of equipment that assists individuals who are disabled, ill, or injured to more easily manage their personal needs and daily activities.” These items include walkers, canes, rollators (rolling walkers), manual wheelchairs, crutches, bedside commodes, grab bars, dressing aids, toilet safety frames, reachers, shower chairs, and transfer benches.

Although health insurance and government social safety-net programs often cover durable medical products as well as other “assistive technologies” — devices or software that supports the disabled, ill, or elderly — the equipment can be costly. It may be out of reach for the poor, working poor, uninsured, and those who are ill or debilitated and have exhausted their finances. Government organizations in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia not only accept suitable donations but also scrutinize the need and eligibility of recipients.

For more information on donating durable medical goods, please click here for regional and national information from the Washington Post, as well as specifics for those in the District of Columbia, those in Maryland, or those in Virginia. D.C. officials also have posted further regional information visible here on other “loan closets” of appropriate goods.