New group helps health care workers find RVs to borrow amid virus outbreak
Apr 16, 2020, 4:35 AM
(Facebook Photo/RVs for MDs)
(Facebook Photo/RVs for MDs)
PHOENIX — A new group has a solution for health care workers who are worried about coming home with the coronavirus and infecting their loved ones.
The group is called RVs 4 MDs. It connects health care workers with RVs they can borrow for free.
“The beauty of it is that you can still have your loved one on your property,” the group’s Emily Phillips told KTAR 92.3 FM’s The Mike Broomhead Show on Wednesday. “So you can wave at them. You can have 10-feet dinner dates. Things like that.”
Phillips co-founded the group in Texas, and it quickly spread to other states. Her husband is an emergency room physician. She was worried about him infecting her and their children with the coronavirus.
“I was terrified because we have a 6-month-old baby boy, a 5-year-old daughter and an 8-year-old with asthma – I have asthma,” she said. “So every time he would walk in the house, he might touch his nose, touch the microwave and I was panicking.”
Her mother suggested she post on Facebook that she was looking to rent an RV for her husband. Within minutes, a friend connected her with Holly Haggard, who was willing to let her borrow an RV for free.
The two went on to form RVs 4 MDs.
Phillips said about 20 health care workers in Arizona have already been matched with an RV. Among them is a nurse who works at a hospital in the East Valley and has a 6-year-old daughter.
“I am interacting with positive patients,” she wrote on the RVs 4 MDs Facebook group. “I’m considering a hotel but the cost both financially and emotionally is too high. My husband has begged me to quit my job, but I am a nurse.”
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In another post, the wife of a hospice nurse in Phoenix said her husband takes care of “the most vulnerable patient population.”
“He is constantly in/out of facilities, care homes and patient’s private homes throughout the day,” she wrote. “I am high risk due to underlying health conditions, so for that reason we have made the difficult decision to live apart for now.”
Phillips said since she and Haggard started the group three weeks ago, nearly 800 health care workers across the country have been matched with an RV.
“We’re just a couple of moms who started this three weeks ago, and now it’s nationwide,” she said.
The matches are made through the RVs 4 MDs Facebook page. Phillips said they try to vet people who volunteer their RVs and those seeking them, and then leave it up to them to come up with an agreement.
“For every match we make, we think we can save lives and potentially get back to work sooner,” she said.
