A ‘Helping Hand’ with home health

At that time, Helping Hands — which provides a wide variety of in-home health care and other services — moved its offices from Hood River to The Dalles.

“Our staff have been providing everything —housekeeping, meal prep, transportation, personal care and medication management,” explained Mary Gailley, regional manager for Helping Hands, adding that the business also provides foot care for clients, help with dressing and bathing, doing the laundry, and even care for a client’s pets and plants.

Gailley said the business specializes in elderly care, but the company expects to branch out into other areas as well, such as disabled care, hospice care and possibly medical transportation.

“We feel like there are additional needs in the community that we can work toward providing down the road as we become more established,” she said. “We take pride in knowing our caregivers and placing them with clients based on not only their care needs and schedule times, but personality. If a client and caregiver are not completely comfortable with each other, we are not doing our job.”

The Helping Hands office in The Dalles is located at 414 Washington Street, Suite 1D. The office houses a staff of four —Gailley in addition to a nurse, an office manager and a care coordinator —who support approximately 45 caregivers working in customer homes around the gorge.

“I currently oversee Wasco, Sherman and Hood River counties,” Gailley said. “We are looking at expanding in other areas as well, and will be overseeing eastern Oregon.”

The caregiving services they offer take place primarily in the homes of the company’s patients.

“That extends to not only private residents but independent living and assisted living,” she said.

“This allows that extra assistance in order to keep clients in the least restricted environment. We also work very closely with the local hospice agencies to provide the care-giving piece of hospice care.”

Gailley, who lives in The Dalles, has a background in social work and said stepping into a lead role with Helping Hands came naturally for her.

“I was an in-home case manager and adult protective service worker for DHS (Oregon Department of Human Services) for 15 years,” Gailley said. “When I moved to this area, Helping Hands Home Care hired me to help expand into the gorge. We serve a vulnerable population, and not only do I have several years of experience, but it is a passion of mine.”

Gailley said the company offers an array of services, including one that is a bit unusual for a health care service provider.

“We recently delved into commercial janitorial work,” Gailley explained.

“Expanding into janitorial seemed a good next step. We started offering janitorial services to commercial businesses after being approached by a company asking us if this is something we did or could start doing. I was very pleased to find out that the reason this company was coming to us was that they heard that we have a reputation for quality and dependability.”

Gailley said Helping Hands has a handful of employees that work in both caregiving and janitorial, and has hired staff strictly for janitorial work as well.

According to Gailley, there is a real sense of teamwork among the staffers.

“It makes me very happy that people enjoy working for this company as much as I do, and they are proud to be part of this team,” she said. “We are growing by leaps and bounds, and looking for new team members.”