The Red Cross is looking to expand its hours by 100 per cent for patients who use its loan service.
“The need for volunteers is because we’re a growing service and we rely on our volunteers to deliver customer service,” said Sandra Sawtell, northern coordinator for the Health Equipment Loan Program, Red Cross.
No experience is required, the Red Cross will provide the training, but in return the non-profit organization asks the volunteers to commit to at least six months. The two volunteer roles are for doing direct client services on a specific day and administrative work, which can be more flexible.
“If you have experience in the medical field that would be great but it’s not necessary,” Sawtell said. “We’re looking for volunteers who can donate a few hours a week.”
Sawtell held an information session at the Prince Rupert Regional Hospital on Wednesday, July 12, hoping to draw interest in the program that offers short-term loans to patients who need equipment to heal at home.
The program also supports seniors with mobility issues and palliative care patients who want to spend their final days at home. Patients from Prince Rupert, Port Edward, Haida Gwaii and from the First Nations villages all have access to the equipment with the referral of a health care practitioner.
“We’re only open one day a week though so we’d really like to recruit more people to expand our hours,” Sawtell said.
This year, the Red Cross acknowledged Edith Casey for 10 years of service and Elsie Whitney for five years of volunteering. The manager of the depot, Josie Mackey, was also recognized for donating more than 200 hours to keep the facility running.
“We’re very busy, more and more. We’re not a big town but we have a lot of elderly here and we have our orthopedic surgeon who does people from all over not just Rupert,” Mackey said.
“Another big problem is the equipment does not return on it’s own in three months so we spend a lot of time on the phone trying to get people to bring the equipment back.”
The depot in Terrace is open two days, and Mackey also hopes they can find more volunteer staff to open another day of the week to ease some of the work load.
To volunteer, the application form is at the hospital in the Red Cross depot on A Level, or applications are available online www.redcross.ca