When the Jewish Rehabilitation Center (JRC) in Peabody closed in January, the Don Orione Nursing Home in East Boston received the center’s electronic beds and other furniture to replace the nursing home’s manual beds.
This left Anthony Cerasuolo, owner of Orient Heights Senior Living, the management company of Don Orione, wondering what to do with the outdated manual beds at the nursing home.
Cerasuolo reached out to IMEC America (International Medical Equipment Collaborative) to see if the manual beds could be used in other parts of the world.
“IMEC provides donated medical equipment and other supplies to developing countries,” said Cerasuolo. “This is great benefit to countries that need medical equipment like Kenya, Haiti and Ethiopia but in some cases don’t have the electrical capabilities for modern medical supplies.”
Last Thursday, IMEC began moving the manual beds and other furniture out of the Don Orione.
“It’s great that a facility like the Don Orione was thinking of us,” said IMEC’s Zach Chase. “Instead of getting thrown away and ending up in a landfill somewhere all the furniture will be used in other parts of the world.”
Chase said that the 120 beds from the Don Orione would go to a teaching hospital in Uganda.
“The hospital there specializes in family and maternal care and the beds here will go right to that Uganda project,” said Chase.
IMEC is based in North Andover and has a 200,000 sq. ft. warehouse where all the equipment is stored before being shipped overseas to 85 different countries.
“Inside the warehouse we have small medical suites,” explained Chase. “We wait until all the furniture to construct say a maternity room is on hand and then we ship the entire room to the country that has requested the equipment.”
Chase said this cuts down on sending equipment that cannot be used in a country and ensures that the country in need gets all the medical equipment to upgrade a hospital in one shot.
“This is part of IMEC’s core philosophy of providing respectful medical solutions to developing countries,” said Chase.