Despite it being three years since the massive earthquake ravaged Haiti, the island nation is still recovering. One of biggest obstacles that the nation faces is the lack of medical supplies.

And now, an organization called iLab Haiti is exploring how 3D printing can be used to just make them on the spot. In this interview, spokesperson Ashley Dara explains:
While I was in Haiti last year, a dear friend of mine was running a hospital all by herself with limited resources. One night she wound up having to deliver five babies and they had no umbilical cord clamps, so they were using their own rubber gloves, cutting them to tie off the umbilical cords, which meant that they went through their rubber gloves and had to then deliver babies barehanded with women that were HIV-positive. And all I could think was, wow, if we had a 3-D printer, I could've been printing on-demand umbilical cord clamps for you. So now our guys, or our students that we work with, are actually learning how to make very simple medical devices.
The project is still in the early stages, and they've managed to print out roughly four prototypes of an umbilical cord clamp using ABS plastic material.

The organization is also trying to 3D-print with different materials, such as various cloths and fibers, to make gauze, bags, and so forth. The plan is to run more tests to make sure the tools are perfectly safe to use on humans.

[NPR]