Your West River Health Services Foundation, the fundraising arm for West River Health Services and Western Horizons Living Centers, is proud to announce that our Grateful Givers Club, our annual giving club for needed healthcare equipment, is funding $54,200 worth of brand-new medical equipment! You read that right -- $54,200!

Special Thanks to everyone who has given specifically toward our Grateful Givers Club over the past twelve months. We are grateful for your gifts, whether $10 or $10,000! They all add up and make it possible for us to provide needed medical equipment for West River Health Services and/or Western Horizons Living Centers, over and above our Annual Capital Budget.

The West River Surgery Center will receive two important pieces of new equipment. First, is the $26,700 Pediatric Colonoscope. For us laymen, this is a long flexible tube with a light and tiny camera on one end. It is inserted into the rectum up through the colon (large intestine) and into the very last portion of the small intestine, called the terminal ileum. A pediatric colonoscopy is a procedure used to help diagnose causes of abdominal pain, chronic diarrhea, rectal bleeding, and unexplained weight loss. It is suitable for routine colonoscopy in adults and is useful when the adult colonoscope is unsuccessful in reaching the cecum (particularly in women). Second is the $8,000 Cystoscope. It is used to diagnose, monitor, and treat conditions affecting the bladder and urethra. A cystoscopy is a procedure where your doctor can examine the lining of your bladder and the tube that carries your urine out of your body (urethra). It helps find problems with the urinary tract; and assists with urinary flow; and, tiny surgical tools can be passed through the scope to remove small bladder tumors, and stones or even take a sample of tissue. Our OBGYN staff will now also be able to confirm the integrity of the mother’s bladder with this technology.

West River Physical Therapy will receive a $9,000 Traction Table, which allows our therapists to determine the moment-to-moment vector and timing of the distractive force in their patients. Lumbar Traction is still a common modality for treating patients with back and leg pain.

Our WRHS Lemmon Dacotah Clinic will receive a $7,500 Vaccine Refrigerator, as vaccines should be stored at temperatures between 36 and 46 degrees Fahrenheit (with 40 degrees being best). Failure to store vaccines properly, can reduce and even eliminate their effectiveness.

Last, but not least, our Western Horizons Living Centers will receive $3,000 for Patient Lifts. These medical devices are used to comfortably move paralyzed or mostly dependent patients from place to place with minimal strain placed on the caregiver. These mechanical devices are specifically designed to help transfer people who have limited mobility due to injury, recovery, or chronic conditions.

Thank you to all of our givers who have given specifically to our Grateful Givers Club Fund. Because of your giving spirit, we can provide this needed equipment – for our patients and our staff. It’s a win-win. We are grateful.

If you would like to participate with our Grateful Givers Club, it only takes $100 or more in gifts over one year (only $8.33 per month, almost less than a coffee nowadays). Of course, you can always give to any fund here at West River Health Services Foundation to become a member of our Club. We don’t discriminate! We have three levels of giving: Bronze, $100-$249; Silver, $250-$499; and Gold, $500+. If you want to support needed medical equipment over and above the Capital Budget, then give directly to our Grateful Givers Club Fund. Otherwise, you can also support our West River Ambulance Service, Western Horizons Living Centers, Surgery Center, Physician Recruitment Endowment, General Endowment, Healthcare Heroes Endowment, Scholarship, a particular WRHS Satellite Clinic, or the General Fund. Or maybe you’d like to start a new fund with a significant gift? We’re all ears.

Call Ted Uecker directly at 701-567-3666 if you have any questions about giving to the healthcare leader in Western Dakota. TOGETHER we are RURAL STRONG. WE ALL NEED TOP HEALTHCARE. Onward! Ted Uecker