THUNDER BAY - People on the other side of the world living with a disability or injury will soon have more freedom thanks to a large donation from a local long-term care home.
Medical Equipment Modernization Opportunity picked up several dozen wheelchairs from Southbridge Roseview Manor on Friday, which are destined for Zimbabwe.
“Roseview Manor has made these chairs available and this is fantastic,” said Tom Baxter, operating manager with MEMO.
“They are going to go over to Zimbabwe to people who don’t have them. When you get over there, people have nothing whatsoever and some of them who are injured or paralyzed are crawling in the dirt because they don’t have a chair.”
Joanne Lent, executive director at Roseview Manor, said the wheelchairs are not owned by the home, and families will sometimes opt to leave the chair when the resident is longer with the home.
“Because these wheelchairs and other mobility devices are tailored to fit the specific needs of its user, we do not transfer equipment from one resident to another,” she said.
“To manage these items once they are no longer needed, we work with a charitable organization called MEMO Cuba to donate gently used equipment, such as wheelchairs, to other healthcare facilities.”
Lent added that the removal of the wheelchairs was not related to COVID-19 and they have all been sanitized.
Baxter said sending the chairs to another country means they can continue to assist those living with limited mobility.
“If a family loses a loved one and a chair is donated it is going to go and have a new service and a new life in another country like Zimbabwe,” he said.
MEMO ships containers full of medical supplies, as well as other materials such as tools, clothing, and beds around the world to people in need.
The pandemic has slowed the number of shipments it has been able to do this year. According to Baxter, a container sent last November is now at a port in Mozambique, awaiting the overland journey to Zimbabwe.
“MEMO slowed down for quite a while,” he said. “We are anxious to ship a container. We are waiting to get approval to do so. We have approval to load a container, we just haven’t been able to get one because of COVID and there are so many containers in use worldwide.”
Baxter said he expects the next container to be loaded in May, which will include the wheelchairs and hopefully arrive in Zimbabwe by the summer or early fall.
