Big Dipper

Oh man, I NEED that lift for where I work! We have a swimming pool but no lift, and a lot of our folks use wheelchairs to get around. It's tough helping folks who don't walk into and out of the pool without doing yourself some bodily harm. :-)

I need that lift . . . . .

It sure is newfangled lookin'...

it looks new! wonder why they left that & all else seems bare?
lynne-
perhaps if your facility is owned by a big company, ie., hca, an alert could be put out for one. maybe there's a facility being remodeled, sold, whatever. you could also check w/a local association for people w/disabilities. maybe they would know of one no longer in use.
how about craigslist? eBay? hit up the softest touch on the board of directors...
-mink-

Looks like they left a schedule or therapy chart on the floor; as though they were just leaving for a little while.

THE BIG DIPPER. Mr. Motts, you crack me up!!!
Perfect Caption

There are some crazy laws in different states about disposing of state-owned equipment/supplies. In the state-run facility where I currently work if we receive certain types of supplies and then no longer need them, we can't give them away, sell them, or donate them - they have to go to the trash dump and we can't even tell people when we are going to the dump. Three years ago I watched them empty all the unwanted supplies out of a 4 x 6 room that was 8 feet high, and had to watch them throw all this marvelous stuff in a dumpster. If we took anything out of it (other than to use for the folks on grounds) we would have been "stealing." If we gave it away it would have been "misappropriation of state materials." It was gruesome. I filled a small room with some of these supplies for folks on my caseload, but a large portion of the materials were "age-inappropriate" (I work almost exclusively with adults currently, and many of the supplies would have been perfect for a pre-school or kindergarden).

However, that's how many of us in state facilities get our supplies initially - they are rejects from other state facilities. You just have to hope you are high on the "donor list." Too bad no one votes for increased taxes so we can have decent supplies and have to live on donated ones, and too bad state bureaucracies are so dense that you have to trash unused goods. :-(

its sad ... this equipment could still be used

The company in NY that i worked for has its own rec facility that had at one point a swimming pool that the floor in it raised and lowered epending on the type of DD patients you had in it at the time. We also had the hydraulic lift ont he side that actually lifted the wheelchairs as well as the patients. The sad thing is, is there wasnt enough use being put into the pool, so they stopped using it. It wasnt bc of the patients bc they absolutly loved the water, well the ones without the phobias.... It was bc the staff didnt want to get in the water with them.. If they could reuse this stuff it think it would be great to give to the other organizations that just dont have the funding for it.

Lynne how right you are abouthe age appropriateness. The same facility that i worked for had case workers that would come it and totally ruin holidays for residents. We would decorate the house for the holidays and the residents enjoyed it. ( kinda like they would do in elementary school) The thing is that was age appropriate for them most of them having the mental age of a 5 year old. The case managers would come in and rip it down and if they saw the residents coloring they would flip out and take al the crayons and the coloring books away, it truly is a shame. Just bc they are 50 and 60 doesnt mean they have the mentality of a 50 and 60 year old.

Lynne....God bless you for the love and care you give to the people you work with.

Looks like its brand new..

i wonder when that was last used, it looks so new.

That's very interesting shot.

i see theres a chart lying on the ground, did you look at it?
does the uk have hippa? lol

As a matter of fact, the procedures for HIPAA (U.S. health privacy act) were modeled closely after the British privacy procedures.

A padded pool. Well the edge being padded.
I like the picture.

Lynne, even if everyone had all the materials in the world, if there wasn't people like you helping those who need it, it wouldn't matter. =)

From the looks of it, the dipper was likely set into the floor and not just bolted down. Taking it out in working condition wouldn't be easy.

How much weight can one of those things lift?

might be used for really fat people

This small pool was used as a small therapy pool ajoining a daycare facility. The 'Dipper' was used for getting wheel chair patients in and out of the pool. Unfortunately this pool was eventually closed due to lack of funding. The N.H.S. land on which it stands as far as I am aware will be sold off for housing. The pool closed in the the late 1990's and at present (2007) the buiilding still remains standing, although now fenced off after suffering years of vandalism. In its day it gave much pleasure to the staff and patients who used it. Having worked there myself it is a bloody shame to see such a good facility gone to waste. Well done the N.H.S.

Those Things are fun where my mom used to work at a nursing home they had one of these near they pool. It was indeed for lowering and raising people unable to walk.

that is a pretty new lift, we have one at my work!

I use theses oxford hoists. there really good. the older style ones had a handle to raise the patient for manual lifting. The up-to-date ones are electric.

I just noticed this is a manual one note the handle with the red knob. there was another knob which was tightened, first then The red handle was pushed up and down and the patiend raised. to lower the patiend the the other know was released slowly.

I keep thinking of those claw machines at the penny arcades

There are usually ways around the "age appropriate" dogma. For example, puzzles and coloring books for adults can be purchased from companies that focus on products for patients with Alzheimer's (reminiscence therapy) and hobby stores usually have beautiful coloring books intended for adults. Then you just use colored pencils instead of crayons (markers work too but most of our people would end up wearing more color than the paper). For people who have trouble gripping the thin pencils, buy the soft foam adaptive grips (my kids came home from grade school once to tell me they needed "rubbers"--I was only familiar with one kind of "rubbers" and they were NOT something I wanted my seven-year-old to have! It turned out that that was the name the kids had given the adaptive grips) or make your own out of sponges. One thing we usually become pretty good at, because so much of what our people need "is not in the budget this year," is finding ways to transform everyday items into therapy tools. Case managers should not be coming in and taking things away from staff or residents unless they are also providing better alternatives and training.

i really like the caption, it's lame that they leave such nice equipment behind.

Although it was used for a positive purpose, I'd be scared shitless if that Dipper had to lift me up and down.

Military does that too. Have to dispose of stuff. Can't give it away or anything... so dumb...