Jenny Collins, executive director of Visiting Nurses, talks about the non-profit's new medical equipment bank during a 2014 tour of the thrift store's Pearl Street location in Centralia.
After the Centralia-based Visiting Nurses Foundation started traveling to the Moses Lake area about a year ago, the organization’s leaders identified a need in the area and decided to do their part to help out.
With donations pouring into hospices in the area, local nurses wanted to ensure the money was directly funneled back into the community instead of going to the National Hospice Foundation.
In an effort to steer the hospices in the right direction, the Visiting Nurses Foundation looked at ways it could help and decided Moses Lake would be the optimal place to open a medical equipment bank, said Jenny Collins, executive director of the foundation.
The foundation gave equipment out for the last six months, and just last week moved into a facility.
Liz Burgeis, the Moses Lake Medical Equipment Bank manager, said the location is currently being prepared for a ribbon cutting ceremony that will take place on May 21. With inventory coming in, Burgeis is busy getting organized and preparing to open the medical bank, which will help serve Grant, Lincoln and Adams counties.
Collins said Burgeis is almost ready to dispense her first piece of medical equipment, an electric wheelchair.
The life-long resident of Moses Lake said the city services three counties of residents who can now come to the city instead of traveling to farther away locations.
“People here in this area need the services just as well as the larger areas,” Burgeis said of the Moses Lake area. “… We are hoping to provide medical equipment for the families that are in need and to also be able to keep donations in to keep it running so we can provide longer.”
Collins said the foundation plans to allocate funding for the location in the next year, and the intention is to keep it growing. Currently, the medical equipment bank will be open approximately 30 hours a week, but she plans to also add a Visiting Nurses Thrift Store later on.
Another service that will be expanded to the area is that of comfort therapy programs. Collins said the foundation committed a $5,000 grant that helps provide alternatives to pain medication, like massage therapy, pet therapy and music therapy programs. After seeing the benefits of comfort therapy in her personal life with a close family member who died, Collins said, the service helps alleviate emotional stress to the family and the hospice patient. It will still take some time before the program is available. Currently the foundation is in the training process.
The Visiting Nurses Foundation’s mission is to create funding for education and assistance of home health and hospice patients and their families. By expanding to three additional counties, the Lewis County-based foundation now serves eight counties.
“We knew this was an area very similar to Lewis County,” Collins said. “We saw this was an underserved county and wanted to be apart of providing services that they couldn’t get otherwise.”
Burgeis said the new medical equipment bank will help relieve some of the financial and emotional burdens placed on families.
“It is an opportunity for anyone and everyone who needs it,” Burgeis said.
