31
March
2020
|
16:59 PM
America/Denver

NGS Donates Medical Supplies to Page Hospital, Canyonlands Health Care

NGS Donation Team

PAGE, Ariz. – Two Salt River Project employees’ quick thinking inspired Navajo Generating Station to donate two recovered pallets of medical respirators, gloves, eye protection and other medical items to the Page Hospital and Canyonlands Healthcare.

The employees, who asked to remain anonymous, contacted Kelly May of SRP Investment Recovery.

For two years, it’s been May’s job to inventory, sell and auction various NGS items from tools and vehicles to huge electrical components.

The employees, whose wives work at local health care facilities, independently asked May whether NGS had any kind of supplies that could be used at Page medical facilities which were running critically low.

May said last week she contacted the Albuquerque consignment company NGS is using to sell and auction thousands of NGS items.

“I thought most of our leftover personal protection equipment would be in Albuquerque,” she said. “I contacted the company to see if they had any gloves, masks or PPE that could be used by health care workers on the front lines of the COVID fight, and they did indeed have some.”

May said her NGS Investment Recovery team also located more medical equipment items in the NGS Warehouse last week. These were picked up by the Page Hospital on Saturday. Items from Albuquerque were delivered to Canyonlands on Monday.

Among the supplies are nitrile gloves, 29 half-face respirators, several full-face respirators, masks and safety glasses.

“It feels great,” May said. “We have a responsibility to do the most we can to help in situations like this.”

May said the story began two weeks ago when a former NGS employee told her Page Hospital was in desperate need of medical items, and in the same timeframe, another employee’s wife who works at Canyonlands made a similar request for supplies.

Mari Reed, director of operations for Canyonlands Healthcare in Page, said the NGS donation came just in time. Canyonlands is conducting most COVID-19 testing in Page while Banner Health Page Hospital is admitting patients with respiratory distress.

“Right now, most hospitals can’t get enough supplies from suppliers to keep employees safe enough to treat patients with COVID-19,” Reed said. “We are the front line for Page, and these types of donations are critical.”

Banner Health Page Hospital Interim CEO Dana Barnett said the donation came at a critical time for the hospital.

“It demonstrates how the community and businesses pull together during times of stress and crisis,” Barnett said. “We have a great group of people at the hospital that are making personal sacrifices during this time to care for friends and family and the donation is very meaningful to us. On behalf of Banner Health Page Hospital, I would like to thank NGS for their generous donation of Person Protective Equipment.”

May said her NGS team is happy to assist.

“My team is devoted to the Page community, the Navajo Nation and SRP,” May said. “We’re all a family here and we need to stand by each other.”

About SRP

SRP is a community-based, not-for-profit public power utility and the largest provider of electricity in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, serving more than 1 million customers. SRP is also the metropolitan area’s largest supplier of water, delivering about 800,000 acre-feet annually to municipal, urban and agricultural water users.