CVCC Helping aid Pandemic Donates Medical Supplies and Equipment

CVCC has donated 2,500 pieces of various medical equipment to local hospitals, including a delivery on Thursday to Catawba Valley Medical Center and Friday to Frye Regional Medical Center, that will help during the recent shortage created during the COVID-19 pandemic.

03/27/2020

COVID-19 Donations

With a shortage of medical supplies happening across the United States, Catawba Valley Community College and its School of Health and Public Services are doing their part to step in and help the local community. 

CVCC has donated 2,500 pieces of various medical equipment to local hospitals, including a delivery on Thursday to Catawba Valley Medical Center and Friday to Frye Regional Medical Center, that will help during the recent shortage created during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“The bulk of medical supplies are made in China, and everybody in the U.S. is feeling the pinch of not being able to get enough supplies,” said Robin Ross, Dean for the School of Health and Public Services at CVCC. “We’ve worked very closely with our local hospitals. We have clinical affiliates in numerous counties — as far west as Watauga County and as far east as Baptist Hospital and Forsyth Hospital in Winston-Salem. We’ve been working with a lot of our partners because they’ve reached out with a need. We aren’t holding clinical rotations right now, so we have some extra supplies that we are willing to share and donate to them.”

Ross said the decision to help those medical agencies in need was an easy one, especially given the close relationship developed between them and CVCC.

“They’ve been such good partners to us over the years,” Ross said. “Our hospitals have donated equipment to us in the past. They work with us closely and our preceptors for our programs. Our graduates go and work at their hospitals. We’ve really got a super collaborative relationship. That’s really how all this started was just based on the need due to the coronavirus pandemic. Our community has a need, and CVCC is a big part of the community. We’re just trying to step up and do our part in helping our partners.”

The greatest items on demand have been medical masks, gowns and gloves — items that all of the programs in CVCC’s School of Health and Public Services use for their students.

“All of our programs — from cosmetology, all the way to our health programs — went through their supplies and saw what they had that could help,” Ross said. “We put it all together and did an inventory. We’re just trying to allocate to different agencies as much as we can. We’ll give it away until it’s gone.”

Guy Guarino, the chief development officer for Catawba Valley Health System, is thankful to CVCC for this week’s donation to CVMC.

“We are so appreciative of the much-needed medical supplies that CVCC has donated,” Guarino said. “We are working hard to serve our community, and we are grateful for partners like CVCC.”

Not only have supplies been donated, but CVCC has also loaned a ventilator to Lake Norman Regional Medical Center and given supplies to Catawba County Emergency Services (CCES).

“Catawba County Emergency Services’ first responders are responding to a lot of calls out in the field, and their supply chain is interrupted as well,” Ross said. “Any hospital or partner that reaches out to us with a need, we are trying to help them out and give them what supplies we can to help.”

Individuals have also reached out with a need, and Ross has been happy to accommodate those who need assistant during this very unique time.

“We had a lady reach out to us who is a speech language pathologist and sees patients out in the home,” she said. “She doesn’t have personal protective equipment. She was reaching out to see if we had any supplies we could share with her.”

CVCC President Dr. Garrett Hinshaw says the school’s recent donation of medical supplies embodies exactly what his institution is all about.

“When our community needs us, we are here,” Hinshaw said. “We educate 70 percent of the local healthcare workforce and almost 100 percent of our local public safety first responders, so we must support our alumni now more than ever in order to provide them with life-saving materials and equipment when they need it most.”

Ross said this entire situation has shown just how deeply CVCC has impacted the medical field through not only its close relationships, but sending students into the workforce.

“It’s really kind of neat to see the response,” she said. “A lot of our graduates have gone out and are working at the different hospitals and agencies here locally. We have deep, long relationships with those agencies. It’s really nice that they see us as a true partner that they can reach out to, and we are glad to help them in any way that we can.”

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