Heart to Heart International will head to Cuba soon to deliver medical supplies

The United States government took a major step forward in its mission to normalize relations with Cuba when on Friday it opened the first U.S. Embassy in the capital city of Havana since 1961.

Now a medical mission group in Lenexa is preparing for a Cuba trip of its own.

Heart to Heart International, a nonprofit that collects medical supplies for disaster relief and other medical relief around the world, has collected enough basic medical supplies to fill a 40-foot-long container.

As soon as the Cuban government gives its approval, which could be as early as September or October, a team of workers from the group will travel to Florida and board a ship to Cuba to personally deliver supplies that include catheters, syringes, rubber gloves, diapers, thermometers and antibiotics to a pediatric hospital that is in desperate need.

Materials will be delivered to Hospital Pediátrico William Soler in Havana, where, according to Heart to Heart CEO Jim Mitchum, physicians are sometimes forced to improvise.