“The video calls were very uplifting for him—his face lit up when he saw us. He told my mom, who he’s been married to for 65 years, ‘Just seeing you makes me smile.’ And it was comforting for us to see for ourselves how he was doing.”
Connecting isolated patients to loved ones benefits all involved.
After fainting multiple times, Boyd South, 88 years old, was taken in an ambulance to the Emergency Department at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Hamilton. He was admitted for testing and monitoring. “He’d been in the hospital before,” says his daughter, Karen Stark, “but we’d go and sit with him. We could see for ourselves how he was doing. This was during the pandemic, so it was very different. It was hard to just sit at home wondering how he was doing. And my mom, Audrey, missed him terribly. It was hard.”
Boyd had his cell phone with him, but he was disoriented and unable to use it. “Despite being so busy with patients, his nurses helped him dial the phone so we could talk to him,” says Karen. Even better, the patient representatives set up two video calls using one of the hospital’s iPads. “He was so lonesome,” says Karen, “the video calls were very uplifting for him—his face lit up when he saw us. He told my mom, who he’s been married to for 65 years, ‘Just seeing you makes me smile.’ And it was comforting for us to see for ourselves how he was doing.”
Boyd was diagnosed with orthostatic hypotension—sudden drops in blood pressure that cause fainting—and discharged after three days with ongoing care instructions. “My dad feels very grateful to all the nurses,” says Karen. “Everyone was so kind to him.”