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REquipment

Free DME Across Massachusetts

Author: eanderson

  • Abilities Expo: A Great Venue for REquipment!

    Abilities Expo: A Great Venue for REquipment!

    You might not think an expo that’s all about the latest and greatest in mobility equipment would be a logical place for REquipment. After all, our durable medical equipment reuse program is about getting gently-used DME, like rollators and shower chairs, to people who can’t afford cutting-edge products. We make sure that valuable equipment finds a second (or third) home and nothing needed ends up wasted in a landfill. Conversely, Abilities Expo is home to robotic arms.

    Surprise! We had a great day.

    With over 114 exhibitors, 11 workshops and 6 all-day activities, Abilities had a little bit of everything for people with mobility disabilities and their families. Exhibits ranged from adaptive sports equipment and exoskeletons to daily living aids, therapy horse info and inclusive dance. With so much going on and such a range of ages and interests, REquipment fit right in!

    Two smiling men in wheelchairs at the MassMATCH Abilities Expo booth.
    Ken MacDonald (left) and an Abilities Expo attendee

    Program Coordinators Ken MacDonald and Ginny Morse worked the booth we shared with MassMATCH, the Massachusetts state AT program. Ken and Ginny engaged over 300 people, informing them about DME reuse and signing them up for our electronic newsletter. REquipment Program Director Jennifer Baker did a presentation on Friday about low-cost options for durable medical equipment in Massachusetts and attracted 40 participants!

    Best of all, I had a great time walking around the expo area and networking with other exhibitors. As result, REquipment received a donation of 10 wheelchairs and an adaptive bike from Rehabilitation Equipment Associates, a DME company in Haverhill that was turning over some of their inventory. Additional DME company representatives offered us their gently-used showroom equipment as well. Bonanza!

    Also happening at the MassMATCH booth was the demonstration of a portable wheelchair-accessible scale and the new pressure mapping technology now available to borrow, free of charge, from the MassMATCH device loan program. REquipment program staff encouraged visitors to try them out. We’re delighted that the MassMATCH Weight and Seating Independence Project, funded by the Reeve Foundation, will mean our community of wheelchair users in Central and Western Mass can better manage their weight and prevent pressure injuries.

    Abilities Expo has become an annual event each September in Boston. So mark your calendars for next year and remember to seek us out!

  • REquipment and SMILEmass Partner for Hurricane Relief

    REquipment and SMILEmass Partner for Hurricane Relief

    Two women standing and smiling in front of a tent with wheelchairs and boxes of disposable adult diapers.
    Karen Langley and Lotte Diomede at a Hurricane Harvey equipment drive last week.

    Everyone who knows Lotte Diomede knows she is a force to be reckoned with. Lotte is the president and co-founder of SMILEmass, a non-profit that provides accessible equipment and recreational opportunities for people with disabilities. Last week, Lotte was contacted by a group in Houston working with families with children with significant disabilities impacted by Hurricane Harvey. She was asked to help recruit donations of pediatric supplies and durable medical equipment and she reached out to the REquipment Durable Medical Equipment Reuse Program for assistance. Lotte, whose own son is 17 and a wheelchair user, was committed to making this happen within one week.

    REquipment had already been participating in daily conference calls with the national Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies and the Pass It On Center. The calls were set up to identify the best ways to provide DME, AT and other medical supplies to those negatively impacted by Hurricane Harvey. The day Lotte reached me, I was in the middle of working on potential partnerships with 6 small DME reuse programs and 20 Councils on Aging with loan closets in Massachusetts, as well as with the Connecticut Tech Act Project. The Partnership has urged us to organize our state-level reuse networks to determine what we have to donate and prepare for relief requests as the specific needs for equipment emerge.

    Using her considerable charms and persuasive skills, Lotte found the resources to send two trucks to Houston with supplies on September 8th. It included a dozen pieces of pediatric DME, including 3 pediatric manual wheelchairs, a pediatric walker and an adapted stroller from our REquipment inventory. REquipment is now working to obtain membership with the MA VOAD (Volunteer Organizations Active In Disaster) so we can benefit from VOAD’s partnership with UPS for in-kind transport of equipment and supplies.

    A woman leans over a wheelchair in a room full of DME
    Stacey Collins, a REquipment reuse partner technician, prepares a pediatric wheelchair for donating to the Harvey relief effort

    For SMILEmass and REquipment, this is just the beginning of our partnership; we will continue to work together as the needs of those affected by Hurricane’s Harvey and Irma are identified in the weeks and months to come.

  • Biogen’s TeamBonding Benefits REquipment!

    Biogen’s TeamBonding Benefits REquipment!

    REquipment, Inc. was the happy recipient of 8 brand-new manual wheelchairs last week from Biogen, a Cambridge-based company innovating medical therapies for people with neuromuscular diseases, such as ALS. Our donations coordinator, Ken MacDonald, and I had an opportunity to speak with 86 Biogen employees who built the wheelchairs as part of a daylong team-building exercise.

    We let them know that manual wheelchairs are the most requested piece of medical equipment that REquipment receives. Last year we gave away 225 manual wheelchairs to those needing them for their primary means of mobility!

    a new manual wheelchair

    The event was coordinated by TeamBonding, which routinely uses the activity of organizing employees into wheelchair-building teams as a way of cultivating team spirit and cooperation. All told, 16 wheelchairs were built that day, 8 for REquipment and 8 for the ALS Association MA chapter in Norwood (which also runs a small reuse program).

    What a great way to build camaraderie while making a real difference to local communities!

    A large group of employees outside lined up with wheelchairs, some seated, some standing and talking to one another.

  • REquipment Welcomes Ken and Ginny!

    REquipment, Inc. is pleased to announce the addition of two new staff members: Ken MacDonald and Virginia “Ginny” Morse. Ken and Ginny are job-sharing the REquipment Program Coordinator position. Welcome aboard! We are lucky to have two fabulously experienced DME professionals coordinating REquipment services.

    Before REquipment, Inc., Ken MacDonald worked for 17 years coordinating operations at a national DME provider and within a Massachusetts healthcare provider. For the past few years, he has consulted to REquipment, Inc., helping us develop our policies manual, training partner staff on best practices for equipment cleaning, and conducting consumer satisfaction follow-up surveys. Going forward, Ken will handle equipment donation requests and outreach to potential sources of bulk or on-going DME donations.

    Headshot of man smiling
    Kenny MacDonald

    Ginny has spent 18 years in the disability field, working with the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the Disability Policy Consortium where she has coordinated and organized advocacy. Since January, Ginny has been researching and developing marketing and outreach lists for REquipment. Ginny will handle equipment requests and continue to assist in developing our outreach lists and mailings.

    Headshot of smiling woman.
    Virginia “Ginny” Morse

    Both Ken and Ginny bring significant knowledge and commitment to our program’s mission and values. In short, they “get it” when it comes to the impact a DME reuse program like REquipment can have on individual lives, families and even whole communities.

  • REquipment Gets New Wheels!

    REquipment Gets New Wheels!

    With funding from the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission, REquipment, Inc. has purchased a new-to-us lift-equipped van! The van means we can collect and deliver donated equipment faster than our current turn-around cycle and overall more people will get what they need to live better in their communities.

    Two weeks ago, the van was officially transferred to our Reuse Site partner, the Pappas Rehabilitation Hospital for Children (PRHC). PRHC has been a REquipment partner since the inception of our program in 2013, offering in-kind space and support technicians as needed for assessing complex rehab equipment. At the start of this fiscal year, PHRC CEO Brian Devin vowed they would refurbish and deliver 200 pieces of DME for us, nearly doubling their 2016 volume. Two weeks ago, as I handed over the keys to the new delivery van, I had the great pleasure of informing him he’d exceeded this goal. At the close of FY17 (June 30th), PHRC had collected, refurbished and delivered 202 pieces of DME!

    3 men and 3 women standing in front of a van. A woman passes a key to a man.
    Left to right: Brian Devin CEO, Pappas Rehabilitation Hospital for Children; Ann Shor, Director, IL & AT, MRC; Jennifer Baker, REquipment Program Director; Gary Rabideau, Director Rehabilitation Clinic, PRHC; Karen Langley, CEO, REquipment; Patrick Wallace, REquipment Site Coordinator at PHRC

    Program Director Jen Baker and I didn’t just bring Pappas the van, however. We brought it full of refurbished DME from across the state for people in the PHRC Reuse Site’s service area. The equipment included 1 power wheelchair, 4 manual wheelchairs, 1 tub seat, 1 pediatric walker, 1 shower walker, 2 sling lifts and 1 bed rail. The addition of this dedicated lift van, Brian affirms, means this equipment will be out the door swiftly and FY18 will see even higher numbers of efficient deliveries.

    Van open with man and many items of D M E
    Patrick Wallace, PHRC Site Coordinator
  • We are Here for Veterans

    We are Here for Veterans

    Here is a picture of James and Ron. James contacted us a few weeks ago to ask our assistance in getting a fellow homeless veteran living at the “Soldier On” facility at the VA hospital in Leeds a power wheelchair. James sent us this picture a few days ago showing the morning he came down to breakfast to see the big smile on Ron’s face that the chair had been delivered. Not all veterans have service-connected disabilities that make it possible to get VA-funded equipment. We are there for those who don’t.

    Two men, one seated in a power wheelchair

  • Thank You Compassionate Care ALS

    Thank You Compassionate Care ALS

    We rely on donations of gently-used durable medical equipment from individuals, facilities and organizations to meet the equipment needs of elders and individuals with disabilities in Massachusetts. Compassionate Care ALS in West Falmouth has been a generous donor of their overflow equipment to us. Last month we acquired 5 power wheelchairs in excellent condition that will be posted in our inventory soon. If you have gently-used equipment you want to donate please complete our online donation form. We can provide you with a tax donation letter.

    5 powerchairs

  • Coming Soon to Our Inventory!

    Coming soon to our REquipment inventory: a pediatric Permobil powerchair that can raise a child up to eye level or bring down to crawl onto the floor. Very cool.

     

     

  • Ricky Loves His Powerchair!

    Ricky Loves His Powerchair!

    Thanks, everyone, for making stories like this one possible. Last month we had the privilege to make a real difference for a homeless 10-year-old boy. Ricky has a degenerative skeletal disease and a broken leg. Getting around with a manual wheelchair while awaiting surgery is not an option because manual chairs are too difficult for him to push. He is currently living with his aunt, who plans to help him recuperate following his surgery and while his mom looks for housing. She also helped connect him with our program and the MassMATCH AT Regional Center.

    Thanks to our community of programs and donors, Ricky is now cruising around independently in a power wheelchair and he and his aunt could not be happier. “He absolutely loves the chair,” she wrote Stavros CIL, our partner, who delivered the equipment. “I took him to Quabbin Dam on the way home and he was amazed at all the places he could go now.”

    Smiling boy seated in power wheelchair next to standing smiling man.
    Ricky with Tom Filiault on delivery day

    Our network is helping give Ricky a quality of life that would otherwise be out of reach. Ricky can get in and out of his aunt’s house because of the loan of a portable wheelchair ramp provided by the AT Regional Center in Pittsfield. His aunt found a ramp/trailer hitch on Craigslist and she writes, “The possibilities are endless.” Despite the broken leg and impending surgery, Ricky is getting a taste of summer: “He was so excited to be able to go on grass and dirt trails with such ease. He even kept up on a bike ride with his cousin yesterday!”

    Boy seated in power wheelchair on grass with tree roots, leans to pet a dog on a park bench.
    Ricky enjoying the great outdoors

    Want to help more kids (and adults) like Ricky? Power wheelchairs change lives and we have a steady demand and even a reasonable supply of equipment. What we need help with is funding for batteries. Help us get more people moving! Your $350 donation will solve someone’s mobility needs and all gift levels are appreciated! Donate today.

  • Roxanne Haecker Finds Power With REquipment

    Roxanne Haecker Finds Power With REquipment

    REquipment was pleased last month to make a big difference in the day-to-day mobility of Roxanne Haecker. Roxanne is the Director of Education and Workforce Development at Roxbury Tenants of Harvard.  She called us in March, explaining she has a spinal cord injury, and that she’s in need of a power wheelchair to get back and forth to work. Accustomed to using a manual chair, Roxanne was lately finding it was more and more difficult to get around. “I actually had to ask for help more than a few times when it was windy or when I left work late in the evening,” she told us.  A power wheelchair, she suspected, would give her back her independence and peace of mind.

    In April we received the donation of a Hoverround powerchair.  Having never used a power wheelchair before, Roxanne was initially hesitant. “I was a little afraid of the chair at first, afraid whether I would be a crazy driver and crash into things or if the battery would die and  I’d get stuck somewhere.”  Now, a month later, Roxanne is a happy powerchair driver. “None of those things happened! I am using the chair every day to go back and forth to work, and it has made my life so much easier!”

    Want to read more great stories about people gaining independence? Donate funds for a powerchair battery!

    Two women, one standing and one seated in a manual wheelchair
    Karen Langley with Roxanne Haecker