The Comox Bay Care Society has officially unveiled a new Care-A-Van.
According to the society, this new van, a 2020 Ford E450 with 51,000 kilometers, will be used to provide medical and social support to those in need in the Comox Valley, taking the place of the original Care-A-Van, which was used for over 15 years.
Board member at large for vehicle maintenance, assets, and operation Dale Erhart says they have been looking to replace the original van for almost 8 years.
“We started to actually save funding little over 2 years ago to prepare for this,” said Erhart.
“We knew it was going to be a large, financial outlay but we appreciated the fact that without a vehicle, we have no outreach.”
While the original van has helped community members for several years, Erhart says the vehicle is 35 years old, where each time a mechanical problem came up, there was a risk that they wouldn’t be able to provide their service consistently.
He says the new vehicle brings many advantages, including being more up-to-date, safe, reliable, and takes less maintenance to run.
“We now have an electric awning that rolls out each stop, especially in bad weather, and it has a light bar that shines brightly on the area,” said Erhart.
“There’s a massive access door on the curbside, and lots of storage so we can serve our clients a lot better and get that trust that we really want to get so that they can get services we can provide.”
Other features of the van include a converted class C motorhome with a side entrance, a welcome chair, dinette for nurse’s records an examination room, slide-out for more space, dash and roof air conditioning, a rear bedroom converted to an examination table and nurse’s station.
Erhart says the staff are very excited about this new van, as it helps put them in a position of having a reliable vehicle that will last for several more years.
For what happens to the original van, it will be gifted to the Gwa’sala-‘Nakwaxda’xw Nations to serve indigenous communities in Port Hardy.
