Inside a Nelson warehouse in New Zealand hundreds of unused hospital beds, examination tables, wheelchairs and other pieces of medical equipment are repaired and stored, ready to distribute among Pacific nations.
In order to get some of the equipment to those in need, Nelson woman Belinda Roselli is trying to raise $14,000 to ship a 40-foot container from Nelson to Port Vila in Vanuatu.
Roselli's business, Lav Kokonas, imports and sells coconut oil and other products from Vanuatu and it was through her work she became aware of the rising problem of diabetes among the indigenous people of Vanuatu.
Of particular concern was the number of diabetes-related amputations that occur at Port Vila hospital.
"Some weeks there have been up to 12 patients whose lower limbs have been removed," Roselli said. "Many have little or no form of mobility aid after the operation."
Concerns over how new amputees cope when they leave hospital and return to their rural villages is what spurred Roselli to think about what she could do to help.
In her search to find equipment that might alleviate some of the difficulties amputees faced she discovered the Nelson branch of the South Pacific Moana Hospital Trust.
The trust, which began in Auckland in 2004, has been supplying ex-Nelson Marlborough District Health Board equipment into Pacific nations for the past eight years.
Trustee Graham Gardiner developed the Nelson branch and has sent more than 30 shipping containers into the Pacific to Tonga, Tuvalu, Samoa and Fiji.
A group of men meet weekly at the warehouse in Richmond to repair discarded medical equipment from hospitals, rest homes and other medical centres and it is then stored before being re-distributed.
Rob Brown has been volunteering with the trust for the last eight years and in that time he has seen 20 containers filled with equipment sent into the Pacific.
Along with several others each Thursday, he fixes any broken equipment to make sure it is ready for use again.
"One of the important things is [the countries] state to us what they want, they give us a list of desirables and we try and fill it with what we have got."
Roselli said the trust volunteers were "true champions".
"Re-homing this essential equipment into Vanuatu is a lot better than seeing it hitting the landfill or being sent to scrap," she said.
"What they are doing just blows me away, environmentally, fiscally and for the community, it ticks a lot of boxes."
She wants to add Vanuatu to the list of Pacific Islands that receive the equipment from the trust and ideally, would like to be able to send two containers a year
"There are large numbers of crutches, walking frames, wheelchairs and even manually operated hospital beds which would be welcomed by amputees and others living with long term injury or illness," Roselli said.
Expat Kiwi nurse Julie Shugg and her husband Mick, who is an amputee, voluntarily run the Vanuatu Amputee Association and Aelan Soa Kea (Island Sore Care).
The two groups provide primary medical aid to prevent further disease and assist in the prevention and treatment of tropical infections, amputations due to diabetes.
The association relies on donations of medical equipment from New Zealand and Australia and the couple distribute it to those who are most in need.