Robert Fisher
Staff Reporter
BARRY’S BAY – A little known program called the Loan Cupboard run by Madawaska Valley Palliative Care helps provide medical equipment at no cost to people who need it.
Executive Director Lisa Hubers said the program began when the hospice started its visiting program in 2012. “We could see that a lot of families who were at end of life were struggling, maybe, just getting some of the equipment they needed.” The hospice began lending out equipment that had been donated to the facility. “We decided that we could keep that and circulate it out to other families who had similar need. And then it kind of grew out of that.”
People continued to donate equipment over the years and Hubers has applied for grants to acquire more. The program receives no provincial health-care funding. “It’s fundraised dollars that come from the community,” Hubers explained. The hospice rents a space nearby to store the equipment.
The equipment lending program is, “not our original mandated thing to do, by any means. We could see, definitely, there’s a lot of people in our community that that extra expense,” particularly for seniors on fixed income was difficult to cover. She said it can make a big difference to a patient when a therapist goes to someone’s home and tells the patient they need certain equipment and have to buy it versus telling the person they need equipment and they can contact the hospice to borrow it at no cost. Therapists will pick up and return equipment on behalf of their patients, too.
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