By Tracie Mitchell
Staff Writer 

Washakie Hospital Foundation making lives better one gift at a time

WORLAND – The Washakie Hospital Foundation has been giving back to the community for many years, first helping the hospital with patient comfort, now giving monetary gifts to cancer patients and helping with mental health first aid and suicide prevention.

 

March 27, 2018



WORLAND – The Washakie Hospital Foundation has been giving back to the community for many years, first helping the hospital with patient comfort, now giving monetary gifts to cancer patients and helping with mental health first aid and suicide prevention.

According to the United Health Foundation’s 2017 America’s Health Ranking Annual Report, Wyoming is considered the worst state in the nation for suicide with 27.5 suicides per 100,000 people.

“Cloud Peak counseling has two courses, they have a mental health first aid for adults and a mental health first aid for kids. We are going to partner with them and we are going to pay for the supplies for the classes and they will pay for the training for the classes. The hope is to provide these four trainings in the community, two for adult and two for youth on this mental health first aid. Wyoming has one of the highest ranking numbers for suicide. These classes are for everyone to be able to know what to look for and it’s really important. This money will come out of the general fund,” Washakie Hospital Foundation member Marty Hinkle said.

Washakie Foundation member Keith Van Brunt said, “The Washakie Hospital Foundation started long before Banner Health, it started long before when Lutheran was here, it’s actually part of the Washakie Hospital as a county entity. Our goal here initially was to raise money to help the hospital with funding projects, i.e: equipment, televisions, patient comfort type things. But since then we have transitioned away from that and we have the cancer fund and the general fund. Under the cancer fund we usually give people who are receiving cancer therapies, within not only Washakie County but within the Big Horn Basin, $500 gifts to help them offset some of the expenditures that you can’t recoup with insurance, such as travel, food, lodging, all that good stuff.”

Last year the Washakie Hospital Foundation gifted $500 each to 18 cancer patients in the Big Horn Basin. Thanks to the generous donations of community members, the foundation was able to give an extra gift at Christmas of $200 per recipient.

Hinkle stated that the foundation had raised more money than the original seed money, so since the foundation, who is not in this to make money, distributed the extra money to the recipients from the cancer fund.

Van Brunt added, “We’ve given gifts not only in Worland but we’ve given gifts in Thermopolis, Ten Sleep, Basin, Burlington and Shell. It’s designed for the people in the Big Horn Basin to help these people during a very stressful moment in time.”

Washakie Hospital Foundation member Wendy Sweeny added, “In general the community has been amazing. It’s an unrestricted gift so they can use it for anything, we don’t dictate what they spend it on. They don’t have to use if for medical care, if a manicure, pedicure made them feel good they can use it for that. It’s to make them feel that there is a support system, it’s not based in need, it’s based on: they have to be a cancer patient and they have to acknowledge that they are a cancer patient. But more importantly, it’s to help the family, that they are not alone going through this process because it’s a scary thing for families.”

Any and all donations given to the Washakie Hospital Foundation stays in the Big Horn Basin. Donations made to the general fund are used for the suicide prevention and other areas the foundation can assist. Donations made to the cancer fund go to area residents battling cancer.

“You can rest assured anyone who donates to Washakie Hospital Foundation cancer fund, that money will go straight to the cancer patients, it doesn’t go to any overhead, We don’t use it to pay for any advertising, it goes straight to the cancer fund,” Hinkle said.

Applications are available at Washakie Medical Center or by contacting a Washakie Hospital Foundation member including Mary Jo Jake, 347-2448; Marty Hinkel at 347-6929 or Rhonda Jordan at 347-6981.

 
X
 

Powered by ROAR Online Publication Software from Lions Light Corporation
© Copyright 2024