Glia’s Gaza Tourniquet is ready for emergency use in Ukraine
Glia has launched a campaign to teach others how to create tourniquets, and to create tourniquets for distribution to civilians in Ukraine who are at risk of serious injury and death. We are fundraising to manufacture tourniquets for export to Ukraine from Gaza and/or Canada. Donate generously here. We have also published all of our information on production for others to use. Find our repository here: https://github.com/GliaX/Tourniquet .
The Gaza Tourniquet is battle-tested. Glia gained experience creating and distributing tourniquets during the Israeli attacks on Gaza in 2021 and the Great March of Return in which there were over 28,000 civilian casualties due to the Israeli army. This experience under fire uniquely positions us to support health care providers in Ukraine. Our response also answers current requests by our medical colleagues in Ukraine to help in the provision of tourniquets.
Gaza Tourniquet born on the battlefield
Glia’s Gaza Tourniquet was started in earnest in mid 2017 with the intention of properly designing and researching it before deployment. The long process was interrupted by the 2018 Great March of Return that eventually saw over 28,000 casualties, and the Israeli-led war on Gaza in 2021.
The World Health Organization reported that 86.9% of all gunshot wounds during the Great March of Return were to the arms and legs, a total of 5,969 victims. Despite this, only 2 died of their injuries, a remarkably low 0.03% fatality rate. The reasons for this are multifactorial, but include the wide use of tourniquets for the first time in Gaza and the training that accompanied the Stop The Bleed Gaza campaign.
Ukrainian health care workers ask for help
Over the past week, Ukrainian health care workers have asked for help, including tourniquets for wider distribution to hospitals and for Personal First Aid Kits (PFAKs). Glia studied this call and crafted our campaign to respond to it.
Free/Open source is meant to be used by everyone
We released our repository after careful review. It contains all of our expertise and current production knowledge on the tourniquet to date. For anybody who wishes to start producing tourniquets and has previous medical device production experience, contact us at info@glia.org , via our twitter @glia_intl, or anywhere you find us. We will help your shop manufacture tourniquets. The goal is to create distributed manufacturing capacity that can meet Ukrainian demand. If you have never made medical devices, a lifesaving device that might kill somebody if it fails is probably not the place to start.
We seek to also produce tourniquets in Canada for immediate export with aid workers and in the bags of those travelling from Canada to Ukraine and its surrounding countries. However, Glia does not currently have the funding for this. If you are interested in helping in this avenue, contact info@glia.org.
What happens if the war ends
If the war ends before this campaign’s goals are achieved, we will redirect the remaining tourniquets and any money raised to other conflicts in which civilians are being injured and in which there is a call for tourniquets. Sadly, the candidate countries are numerous.
Donate and share!
Donate generously today and share our campaign! Spread awareness among your maker family and friends about this information. Even just sharing this on your social media pages can help us reach more people and ensure that high quality tourniquets make their way to Ukraine and elsewhere. We did amazing things in decentralized manufacturing for the COVID PPE crisis. Together, we can do the same and help reach the goal of equal care for everyone!
