From left to right: Chuck Mantooth (President and CEO of Appalachian Regional Healthcare System), Adelbert Mabandi (General Manager of CIPIVIE), Mike Rawls (Director of Materials Management), and Greg Miller (Chief Nursing Officer)

A donation travels to its long awaited destination

Moving into the new Schaefer Family Patient Care Tower meant not only that patients would have access to a state-of-the-art facility, but also new equipment and furniture. This meant the old equipment like patient beds, OR operating beds, waiting room chairs, recliners, vital sign monitors, IV bag poles, and OR lights needed to be rehomed.

The perfect solution came from CIPIVIE, an international company that distributes resources like healthcare equipment to impoverished countries around the world. Dr. Timothy Edmiston’s daughter, Ashley, put Mike Rawls, Director of Materials Management in touch with Adelbert Mabandi, who is the general manager of CIPIVIE.

Last week, he along with his moving crew, picked up the equipment from Watauga Medical Center and will be distributing it to five hospitals in both the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo. The receiving hospitals currently have no chairs in the waiting rooms or patient rooms for family members, and one of these hospitals does not even have electricity. The donated items should arrive at their destination by late summer.