COLUMBIA, Tenn. — The United Way of Greater Nashville recently awarded the Maury Regional Health Care Foundation a $10,000 grant from the organization’s COVID-19 Response Fund to provide assistance and support for those impacted by COVID-19.
The Maury Regional Health Care Foundation will utilize the funds from the grant to support Maury Regional Health’s (MRH) mobile medical unit by providing equipment to allow the unit to continue safely operating during the pandemic. These safety precautions include purchasing ultraviolet (UV) disinfecting lights to clean the unit; cooling misters, portable air conditioners and a mobile privacy shelter for serving patients under the unit’s canopy as opposed to inside to allow for social distancing; and additional personal protective equipment (PPE) for staff and patients.
“Earlier this year, the world as we know it changed forever. But now and always, the mission of the mobile unit team and the Maury Regional Health Care Foundation remains unchanged: helping those who need it most,” said Foundation Executive Director Joe Kilgore. “I am extremely grateful to all those who made the United Way’s COVID-19 Response Fund possible and to our incredible team for their flexibility, strategic thinking and continued service to our at-risk patients during this difficult time.”
Since the onset of the pandemic earlier this year, the mobile unit team has continued to stay in contact with many of the people they serve: helping to navigate emergent health care challenges, distributing water, hand sanitizer and face masks to those without access and checking in with regular patients and the elderly to provide support and information about COVID-19.
“Looking to the months ahead, with this funding from the United Way of Greater Nashville, our team will be able to continue effectively serving the region’s most vulnerable populations while responsibly facing this health crisis,” said Director Patrick Harlan, whose responsibilities include oversight of the mobile unit’s operations.
The mobile medical unit is a customized 38-foot, wheelchair-accessible recreational vehicle (RV) fitted with two exam rooms and a laboratory area staffed by a registered nurse and emergency medical technicians.
Back in 2017, the Maury Regional Health Care Foundation set out to raise the funds to establish the mobile unit with the objective of bringing health care services out into the community. Since the unit began operation in 2018, it has touched the lives of thousands of at-risk and underserved patients across southern Middle Tennessee by performing general and routine health screenings, administering flu vaccines, and providing education, outreach and preventive services. The unit can often be found at food pantries, public housing developments, homeless shelters and churches in Giles, Lawrence, Lewis, Marshall, Maury and Wayne counties.
To learn more about the mobile medical unit and the services it provides, contact Maury Regional Health at 931.380.4031. Gifts to support the mobile unit’s work as well as similar community outreach services may be made through the Foundation’s Community Health Fund at MauryRegionalFoundation.com or by calling 931.380.4075.