When a hospitalized patient could not attend the funeral for his wife, he was devastated. Kim Fallon, RN, APN, Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner found a way creative and compassionate way to make sure he could take part, and she could provide the supper he needed.
Members of the Community Medical Center team in Toms River have been tirelessly caring for patients, and one another, as they respond to the coronavirus pandemic. Throughout it all, they have responded with strength, skill, and compassion, and shown who they truly are – heroes.
Transcription
I had an older gentleman who was in for some medical reasons, and his wife had just passed away. And his big thing was that he wanted to see the funeral and the viewing, so I called his niece who was in like, North Jersey and she said, you know, ‘the wake is this afternoon and the funeral is tomorrow.’ So for the one afternoon, I went and I had my cell phone with me and I went up and I set it up and uploaded some app so I could do like a video chat with his niece at the wake, so he was able to see her at the wake and listen to the small service that they did, and to see her and see what clothes she was wearing and what clothes that he had picked out, just to talk with the niece face-to-face, and she was able to move the camera up so he could see everything, and I just sat with him for a while afterwards and just listened to him and let him talk, and he had a hard time with it because just seeing it, I think was helpful, but he said it just made it so real. So, yeah, he had a hard time with it.
Next, I brought in my iPad and they had a little – just at the gravesite – where they had a ten-minute service. He was very, He was sad. That was part of the reason he was there, it was sad. [wipes away tears]. For the first couple of days he was there he was so numb and almost emotionless, and with doing that he had tears streaming down his face. But, he appreciated it. And every day when I would follow up with him, every day he’d say ‘thank you so much. That really meant so much.’”