Same-Day and Discharge-Day Equipment Delivery in Calgary

Delivering to discharges from Calgary-area hospitals

Most of the discharges we deliver for come out of the four large Calgary hospitals: Foothills Medical Centre on 29 Street NW, Rockyview General Hospital on 14 Street SW, Peter Lougheed Centre on 26 Avenue NE and South Health Campus on Front Street SE. We also deliver when someone is leaving High River General Hospital, Strathmore District Health Services or Oilfields General Hospital in Black Diamond and going home anywhere in our area.

We are an independent rental company. We have no affiliation with any of these hospitals or with Alberta Health Services, and nobody at the hospital books equipment with us on your behalf unless you or a clinician asks them to. What we do is work to the date the care team sets, with whoever is organising the move home: the family, the unit’s discharge planner, or the occupational therapist or physiotherapist who assessed what the patient will need.

• Foothills Medical Centre, NW Calgary
• Rockyview General Hospital, SW Calgary
• Peter Lougheed Centre, NE Calgary
• South Health Campus, SE Calgary
• High River General Hospital, Strathmore District Health Services and Oilfields General Hospital

What “same-day” honestly depends on

Two things decide whether a bed or lift can go out the day you call: whether the right model is cleaned, checked and on the shelf, and how much of the day is left. A standard full-electric bed requested in the morning is a very different job from a bariatric bed with an alternating pressure mattress requested late in the afternoon for a third-floor walk-up.

So we don’t promise a time before we know those answers. On the first call we check stock against the patient’s weight and needs, look at the delivery schedule, and give you a straight answer: today, tomorrow morning, or a specific window before the discharge. If a hospital has told you the patient may leave “as early as tomorrow”, call today rather than waiting for the date to be confirmed. A booking is easier to push back than to squeeze in.

Matching the equipment to the patient, not just the order

Weight matters more than most families expect, because manufacturers rate beds and lifts differently. Drive’s Delta Ultra-Light 1000 full-electric bed carries 450 lb in total, and that figure includes the person in it. Invacare’s 5410IVC is rated for a 350 lb patient within a 450 lb total. For larger patients, Drive’s 42-inch bariatric bed carries 600 lb total with a 500 lb patient maximum, and Invacare’s BAR750 carries 750 lb total including mattress and accessories, with a maximum patient load of 675 lb.

Room and access decide the rest. Invacare gives the 5410IVC an 80 by 36 inch sleep surface, but beds like it arrive in sections, so a narrow bedroom door is rarely the problem. Tight turns in a split-level stairwell, a condo elevator that has to be booked, or a bed that needs to go on the main floor because the bedrooms are upstairs are all things we would rather hear about on the phone than discover on the doorstep.

• The patient’s approximate weight, so we choose a model rated for them
• Which room the equipment goes in, and whether it is on the main floor
• Stairs, landings and tight corners on the way in
• Building access: elevator bookings, loading docks, parking for a delivery vehicle
• Who will be at home to receive the delivery and learn the controls

If the discharge date moves

Discharge dates change for ordinary reasons: a test result that needs one more day, a change in medication, a bed on a rehabilitation unit coming open, or a patient who is ready sooner than expected. Tell us as soon as you hear. You don’t need to wait until the new date is final to call.

If the date moves later, we can hold the booked delivery or rebook it closer to the new date. Some families prefer to keep the original delivery so the bed is set up and the room arranged with time to spare, and that is a reasonable choice when the house is busy. If the date moves earlier, we look for an earlier window the same way we would for a new same-day request, and tell you plainly whether we can make it. Either way, we confirm the new delivery time and the rental start with you when we rebook, so nothing about the change is a surprise later.

The first night home

The equipment should be the last thing to worry about when someone comes home, so we leave it ready to use. The bed is set at a sensible working height, with the hand pendant clipped where it can be reached. A pressure mattress has been inflated and its pump checked. A lift battery is charged or on its charger, and the family knows where the emergency lowering control is.

Before we leave, we go over what to do if the power goes out, because a first night home is a bad time to find out. The Delta Ultra-Light 1000 has a 9-volt battery in its hand control that can lower the head and foot sections nine times without power; the Invacare 5410IVC has a built-in hand crank instead. We show you which one you have. If something doesn’t work the way we showed you, phone us.