100 Mile District General Hospital Auxiliary recently provided new equipment to the hospital’s acute care department to help the nurses, and the patients they care for every day and every night.
These include three standard wheelchairs, worth about $3,000, which will be used along with a $5,133 Bariatric cushion provided by the auxiliary recently.
There is also a new $1,088 WALLAroo chart safe, a dozen quilts worth $292 that were donated for distribution and a donation was made to Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops of $2,000 for the care they provide South Cariboo residents.
“People getting out of bed can get tangled up in the sheets, so they thought it would be better to have something like this,” says hospital liaison Elsie Babcock, of the new supplies. Babcock was a founding member of the auxiliary.
Acute Care nurse manager Natalie Kulyk says the wheelchairs are much appreciated by her and the staff.
The document wall safes are especially unique and helpful to her nurses, as a secure, easily accessible place where the staff can keep the clipboards with charts they need to ensure privacy and confidentiality, instead of leaving them on a cord on the patients’ beds, she explains.
Auxiliary secretary Lucia Medeiros says donations over a certain amount can be tax-receipted, and more members are always welcome and appreciated to join their volunteer committees.
“We also have associate members. They can go to meetings, they don’t have the right to vote, but they can help out.”
The member volunteers who sell the mostly hand-made gift shop items also go around to patients with book or snack carts, she adds.
“All the quilting and the knitting and everything is donated by people in the communities, including members.”
Medeiros says some people go and collect the wool that is donated to the auxiliary, and then use it to knit or crochet the hats, sweaters, booties and other items that are sold in the gift shop.
Purchasing auxiliary raffle tickets, baking, garage sale items, other society support/fundraisers, or donations in memoriam of a loved one is all “wonderful” and helps the community through additional acute health care equipment, she explains.
“People may think of the auxiliaries as just ‘bake sales’ and whatever, but there’s a lot more to it. We are … helping the community, as an auxiliary member.”
For more information on membership, call Nancy Minato at 250-395-4446.