Cleveland office and Röhlig Suus in Warsaw assisting Codonics with their humanitarian effort to support Ukraine.
23 May 2022 - Our Cleveland office and our partner Röhlig Suus in Warsaw recently had the pleasure of assisting Codonics with their humanitarian effort to support Ukraine.
Tim Jablonski, a board member for the Northeastern Ohio District Export Council (NODEC) which works in conjunction with the Commercial Service of the U.S. Department of Commerce, approached our colleague and fellow board member, Jim Haynes about donating six X-Ray machines and three X-Ray carts advanced mobile x-ray machines to Ukraine to help their medical community with the overwhelming efforts to save lives of their injured citizens. The U.S. District Export Councils are volunteers who advise exporters and support the work of the Department of Commerce on matters related to exports and export promotion.
The x-ray systems had to be send to hospitals and clinics located in and around war zones. The District Export Councils routinely helps exporters with difficult export issues and sending x-ray machines into a war zone is no easy task. The Commercial Service in Cleveland and Washington gave advice on the ever changing export rules covering humanitarian aid. Röhlig USA also provided their expertise and also donated the transportation from Cleveland to Chicago and the airfreight from Chicago to Warsaw, Poland. The Ukrainian Embassy was overwhelmed and unable to assist moving the machines from Poland to Ukraine. Rohlig’s European partner, Röhlig Suus, stepped up and connected the team with the Ukrainian Central Hospital who is coordinating Ukraine’s medical relief. They provided the locations and Röhlig Suus found and covered the costs of a brave Polish trucker willing to deliver the machines. Overall, the effort took many hours of difficult work to accomplish but the team found that people were very eager to help and we were finally able to get the machines in the hands of the doctors who are tirelessly trying to save their people’s lives in Ukraine.
This achievement would have not been possible without the efforts of the following people. First of all, the owners and staff at Codonics in Cleveland for their very generous donation and the inspiration to do some good for people they will never meet. Troy McManus, Jim Haynes and the Röhlig Cleveland team for the countless hours to relentlessly forge a path to deliver this help. Our partner Röhlig Suus, especially Dariusz Korczynski, for allowing this effort and donation to accomplish this task. The Commercial Service at the Department of Commerce in Cleveland and Washington for their advice and encouragement.
The pictures below are the Codonics mobile x-ray machines after arriving and in use at one of the three destination clinics 24 hours after arrival. The head of anaesthesiology of the Kharkiv region, passed back their sincere thanks to all for their efforts.
