Qualls focuses on helping seniors get to medical appointments

Being a volunteer dispatcher for the courier service at Fallbrook Hospital, provided by the Fallbrook Hospital Auxiliary, requires an appointment setter’s talent, patience and diligence. Just ask Marilyn Qualls.

“I was a courier for about five years at the hospital before I started being a dispatcher,” explained Qualls. “One day, our dispatcher had quit and no one answered the phone calls for about four days, so I said that I’d do it for two weeks until they found someone – and that was 10 years ago.”

Before Qualls moved to Fallbrook in 1988, she and her husband, Bill, would make frequent trips into the area. They would eat their picnic lunch at Live Oak Park, she said, and then cruise the area looking for the perfect spot to make their home. And on one particular outing, they found it.

When they settled into their new town, Qualls said she never would have dreamed they would make so many new friends. But when she attended the Newcomers Club meetings, doors opened for numerous new friendships.

“One day, the Newcomers Club had speakers from the library, Angel Shop and Fallbrook Hospital,” she explained. “Of course, I volunteered for all three.”

While volunteering at the hospital gift shop, her husband’s golfing friend told them about the courier service. The couple was attracted to the idea. “Bill drove the van and I drove the car,” said Qualls.

Marilyn Qualls became a bona fide dispatcher in 1998. Since then, her list of couriers, not including Qualls and her spouse, is at thirty-two. Eight of them, she said, are female.

Because the courier service is so popular, Qualls said they need more volunteers. “And I can cater to whatever days or hours they want,” she said. The courier service is also in need of financial donations to help with skyrocketing fuel costs. Couriers use their own vehicles and are reimbursed for mileage as well.

“Fallbrook has been really generous to us,” said Qualls. Some of the organizations that have steadily supported the courier endeavor include the Fallbrook Rotary and the Angel Shop.

The positive feedback the courier service receives steadily is what feeds the volunteers’ enthusiasm. “The couriers say that it makes them feel good to help others,” she said.

Appreciative of all the work her team of couriers does, Qualls treats them and their spouses to a special lunch. “I’m indebted to their spouses because they are always the ones who answer the phone when I call.”

Although the dispatcher job is a volunteer position for Qualls, she works nearly every day of the year, arranging appointments for seniors who need transportation to medical-related appointments. “So many of these seniors live alone, no longer have spouses and are unable to drive,” she said. “They have no way to get where they need to go.”

The job, which can be busy at times, is something that means a great deal to Qualls. “It gives me a lot of enjoyment to know that the seniors can count on us.”

For more information on how to volunteer as a courier, or to make a donation toward fuel, call Marilyn Qualls at (760) 599-3397.