Having provided in-home care for Bourbon and neighboring counties for almost six years, the owners of Care 4 U are now adding another business, Your Hometown Medical Equipment, which will sell medical items needed in the county, after other similar stores have closed.
Glen Pearson, Jr., and sister-in-law Rachel Pearson run Care 4 U and now the medical equipment store, after recently receiving the necessary licenses for the store.
Glen has been involved in aspects of the medical care field since serving at a nursing home when he was a teenager. Since then he has sold medical equipment in a prior business and then opened Care 4 U as a hobby, which has grown to include 50 employees who care for 45 clients, some for only a few hours a day while others require 24-hour care.
Most of those employees are from Fort Scott and must go through five background checks and screenings before they can help take care of Care 4 U’s clients. While the business hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., they are also on call at any time. Care can be paid for through Medicaid or private pay.
“Here at Care 4 U, we do everything we can to keep you or your loved one at home,” Rachel said during a recent Chamber of Commerce event Thursday, saying they take care of their clients through medical care as well as house-cleaning and running errands.
Glen said through his time working with nursing homes, he often felt sorry for those who were taken there and then forgotten about or visited only rarely. In keeping them at home, Glen said the clients can be somewhere where they are more comfortable and where it is also more economical.
As Care 4 U continued to grow, Glen said he decided he wanted to get back into the medical equipment business as well, which led to Your Hometown Medical Equipment.
The store is to be open with the end of the long holiday weekend and can be found at the same location as the Care 4 U office, at 5 E. Wall Street.