Baxter International Inc.

Baxter International Inc. helps communities in more than 100 countries address health needs through including product donations, financial contributions and employee volunteerism. In 2006, total giving by Baxter and The Baxter International Foundation exceeded $35 million, including product donations, cash contributions and foundation grants.

Treating End-Stage Renal Disease Patients in Developing Nations

Approximately 1.5 million people with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) use dialysis to cleanse their blood of toxins, waste and excess fluid normally removed by healthy kidneys. Many more people, mostly in developing countries, go untreated or are under-treated. Without adequate dialysis or kidney transplants, most will die. A shortage of donor organs makes transplant a limited option for most people with ESRD, making dialysis the most common treatment.

There are two forms of dialysis: hemodialysis (HD), in which patients generally go to a hospital or clinic several times a week to have their blood pumped through an external filter, and peritoneal dialysis (PD), a home therapy that uses the body's own peritoneum (the lining of the abdominal cavity) as a filter to cleanse the blood.

Although an estimated 88 percent of the world's dialysis patients use HD, PD is widely used in developing nations because it is a self administered and does not rely on an infrastructure of dialysis clinics. As a result, the percentage of PD patients is growing fastest in areas of Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and eastern and central Europe. In China, the number of PD patients has grown 25 percent annually for the last five years, to more than 7,500 at the end of 2005. In Mexico, about 24,000 people use PD, representing about 80 percent of total dialysis patients.

Aiding survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the U.S. Gulf Coast

Baxter was one of the early responders to the tide of human needs following the twin disasters that befell the U.S. Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The company has remained active, and is now addressing longer-term needs in that region's health care system.

In its first response, Baxter's giving focused on meeting dialysis needs of survivors for treatment centers that had been destroyed in the storms. Its IV solutions and IV-administration kits, anesthesia and pharmaceutical products helped met the immediate critical needs.

In 2006, Baxter donated $250,000 to the American Red Cross and established an International Foundation Health Recovery Fund with a $750,000 grant to the Foundation of the Mid-South (FMS), a regional organization serving Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. The donor-advised Fund provides incremental grants to support community-based health care clinics, nonprofits, and other community-based health services for restoration efforts after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Grants have been used to meet a variety of needs including the restoration of services, interim or expanded staffing, relocation and renovation fees, inventory replacement of medication and supplies, and essential small equipment and furniture. Baxter's efforts were matched in 2006 by a $500,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Read more about the Gulf Coast outreach effort.