When VHA Home Healthcare closed its Chatham office and stopped offering services here, seniors with foot-care needs, especially diabetics, were in danger of being left in the lurch.
But the Active Lifestyle Centre (ALC) and the Carlo Rossini Memorial Diabetes Foundation (CRMDF) stepped up and offered local solutions for seniors on low and fixed incomes.
The ALC, which with the help of VHA offered regular foot care clinics at the centre in the past. Even with VHA gone, it continues to do so, with the support of Jean Rossini of the CRMDF.
Linda Lucas, executive director at the ALC, said more than 2,000 people a year utilize the foot-care clinics at the centre. They will continue to be offered weekly.
She credits an open-minded board of directors, and Rossini’s commitment, for ensuring the clinics remained in operation.
“Without her funding and the board’s OK to keep this going, we wouldn’t have been able to save the Chatham diabetic clinics and the clinics at the ALC,” Lucas said. “We didn’t have the equipment we needed, and couldn’t have done it without Jeanie’s help.”
Rossini praised Lucas for her efforts.
“If it weren’t for Linda, almost every foot care clinic in Chatham-Kent would have been cancelled,” Rossini said.
She added the foundation focuses on preventative measures, such as continuing foot care, to help keep people with diabetes from avoiding serious health complications, including amputation.
“We’re into prevention for the sake of the people,” she said.
Lucas said Rossini and the foundation are committed to helping.
“She shows up with cases of diabetic socks at Christmas. There is no more philanthropic person in Chatham-Kent,” she said of Rossini.
The diabetic foot clinics take place every other month at the ALC, and anyone interested must contact the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance’s Diabetes Education Centre to set up an appointment and referral.
For the weekly foot clinics run by the ALC on Tuesdays, contact the ALC directly.
Costs for the clinics are $10-$15.
“These are very reasonably priced and are for people on low or fixed incomes,” Lucas said.
