TEMPLE, TX — For the last three years, Transplant Recipients International Organization's Central Texas Chapter has owned and maintained a trailer at the Baylor Scott & White Medical Center-Temple RV park for transplant patients and their families.
TRIO Central Texas recently decided to expand their efforts to provide affordable temporary housing.
They will soon begin constructing a permanent hospitality house.
In about six to eight months, the facility named "Amy's House" will open and serve as a home away from home for transplant patients and their families.
It's a project doctors said is very important.
"Well obviously family members want to be around and need to be around. They need to be there to help the patient in their post-op care," said Charles Moritz, a nephrologist at Baylor Scott & White Medical Center - Temple.
Officials reported the $1.1 million facility will have eight bedrooms, a common living area, a dining room, a laundry room and a state-of the-art kitchen and more.
The facility is named Amy's House in memory of the daughter of two of the TRIO Central Texas officers. Six years ago, their daughter Amy Firth died suddenly from a brain hemorrhage.
She was a multiple organ, tissue and cornea donor at Scott & White.
"She was our daughter, our younger daughter, our friend, our neighbor. So it was as you'd might expect a terrific loss but one of the things I've learned from a personal standpoint is that out of tragedy can come opportunity and even joy," said John Henderson, president of TRIO Central Texas.
