A Roanoke facility for the homeless has a much-needed medications cart, completely stocked, thanks to the collaboration of a local pharmacy company with nursing students in the Waldron College of Health and Human Services.
Each semester, students work with the Transitional Living Center, operated by Roanoke's Total Action Against Poverty, to provide health education and screenings for the homeless population. Recently, the center was housing 41 people, 20 of them children. Cheryl Evans, the center’s director, mentioned to students that the facility’s med cart needed repair.
Students Aimee Wooldridge, Michelle Johnson, Julie Snyder-Amoroso, Michael Winstead, Lee Brown and Vicki Bernard researched the cost of a replacement cart and learned it could be as much as $5,000.
Erin Cruise, an instructor in Waldron’s School of Nursing, said, “They considered alternatives such as toolboxes, but found these were also quite expensive. I suggested they contact local hospitals and pharmacies.”
Wooldridge contacted Roanoke Vice Mayor David Trinkle, who connected her with Omnicare Pharmacy. After hearing the students’ case, Omnicare signed on as a partner, donating a cart with a capacity of 420 medication boxes—a retail value of $3,100. Omnicare also donated accessories and drawers, which would typically be purchased separately, as well as hygiene items and small gifts to go in the cart. “They even gave 35 bags of candy to the center,” Wooldridge said, which the center’s staff distributed on Halloween.
Though Wooldridge took the lead on the project, she said all the students deserve equal credit for its success. “We have not taken on something of this magnitude before,” she said. “Because of our studies and commitments, we had not had the freedom to accomplish something like this.”
Evans said the donation of the cart could not have come at a better time. “We were literally running out of bins to store individual medications, and that forced us to start using individual, one-gallon freezer bags stored inside two large bins in the cassette med cart,” Evans said. “The new med cart allows our staff to professionally monitor the medications, and it allows us plenty of space to store medications for the adults and the children. This limits errors that can be caused by overcrowding the medicines stored. This new cart greatly enhances the overall well-being of the program.”
Total Action Against Poverty provides services to residents of 11 cities and counties in Southwest Virginia, helping them to become self-sufficient. The Transitional Living Center and Radford’s School of Nursing have been partners in health care for the homeless for almost five years, educating residents about medication management, nutrition, eating on a restricted budget, stress management, exercise, proper hygiene and more.
“Our senior nursing students provided over 1,000 hours of health education, health screenings and health care program planning to the Roanoke Valley, Craig, Botetourt and New River Valley communities this semester alone,” Cruise said. “Many of the agencies RU nursing students assist could not provide these vital services without the time and effort donated by our students. In the process, these nursing students are learning to integrate community nursing concepts into their practice, which will benefit their patients in the future.”
