Hospital Thrift Store Makes $200,000 this Year to Help Fund Medical Supplies

The thrift store, New To You, run by volunteers of the Royal Columbian Hospital Auxilliary provides considerable funds that pay for many needed medical items in the hospital. This year the funds amounted to more than $200,000.

Once a year, after the hospital departments have created their budgets for the year, they each put together a wish list of their needs, items that might be paid for by the RCH Auxilliary and in particular the RCH Thrift Store. Representatives of each department come to a meeting of the RCH Auxilliary and the RCH Foundation to make presentations about the items that they would like to be funded.

This year, 51 items were funded for use in a variety of departments. These items ranged from infant sleep sacks to surgical instruments, from a biopsy device to an infinity game table for ACL patients, lead aprons for doctors working in critical care to a new electronic tablet used to help stroke patients relearn language skills. Other medical items that got funding included a power adjustable chair for use by lab technologists, a device for analyzing blood, a frame to still young children in order to do X-rays, baby car seats for parents of low-income families, and others. 

Funded were the wish lists of 14 departments including medical imaging, hematology, speech language pathology, respiratory therapy and others.Unfortunately, not all requests by the 25 departments could be met from this funding tranche, but there are other funding sources that can be tapped through the RCH Foundation.

Thrift store volunteer Deni Loubert talks about the store, it's mission and the recent presentation event, which she videotaped.