Loading ...(This is a personal musing post rather than anything to do with Virtual Assistants or administrative support, just so you know, LOL.)
We don’t watch very much TV at all, but there are a few shows I like to keep up with. I love that I can do this online by using Hulu.com or going to the station’s website. Technology, you are just too cool!
Anyway, I was catching up on some of my shows over the weekend, one of which is NBC’s Dateline. One of the episodes I’d missed was from a couple weeks ago called “A Matter of Time,” which was about a doctor accused of trying to save the life of one patient by hastening the death of another (to borrow the description from their website). The patient whose death he was being accused of hastening was a young man who suffered for years from a rare degenerative neurological disorder and had been in a coma for quite some time and was being taken off life support.
What especially broke my heart was that this young man’s mother couldn’t be with her son on his last days as he lay dying. She was very poor and could only stay by his side until she ran out of money. After that, she had nothing more to pay for food or a hotel and had to return home. Can you even imagine being in that position?! This was in California, but if I had been there and somehow heard about this poor lady’s plight, I would have taken her into our home in a heartbeat so she could be with her son as he took his last breath and passed on.
My mind got to wandering about how something like this could be prevented. No one should have to leave the side of a dying loved one because they ran out of money. That just seems especially cruel and heartbreaking. And I thought, you know, they have those roommate matching services and couch-surfing websites… why couldn’t hospitals set up something similar based on that concept? They could establish some kind of online registry and the intake and servicing could be managed or at least assisted in some part by volunteer help. Those who are looking to help and have an extra couch or guest room to spare could be matched with low-income family members of patients who have run out of money like this poor woman and need somewhere to sleep and get cleaned up while they look after loved ones in the hospital.
Isn’t that a good idea?! Maybe someone, somewhere has already thought of it. I haven’t heard of anything like that in our area, but it sure would be a nice thing for those people. And it would be a wonderful gesture of good will and community relations for the hospitals.
The other idea I had (because I was thinking about how people have to eat, too, and this basic need was something this poor mother ran out of money for as well) was that hospitals could set up cafeteria gift cards and benefactors could donate funds for prepaid meal cards for low-income family members who have run out of money. The hospitals could then give out these prepaid meal cards to those who have the need.
I think I’m going to call up or write our local hospital and offer them these ideas. It will be interesting to know if anyone has ever thought of this before.
Let me...
5 Comments
Ronald McDonald house…our hospitals here in Omaha have housing available at no charge for the family of the hospitalized. I also think St. Jude hospital has one. They are perfect and this takes away one finacial burden for families. I believe they also offer meal tickets and other amenities.
D’ops! How could I have forgotten, LOL. Do you know if Ronald McDonald houses are just for families of child patients? That’s the impression I always got. I don’t know that we even have them here in our area. Now you have my curiosity up. (This woman’s son was basically an adult, by the way, so if they had them down there, maybe that’s why they didn’t qualify.) But I was kinda of thinking more along the lines of how something like this could be done on a volunteer basis so that no one had to rely on hospitals building actual housing.
I saw that Dateline episode as well Danielle, and it was heartbreaking. There are service available to families paying their last respects, or visitng critically ill patients. Unfortunately I believe in this particular situation there were multiple barriers in play that prevented any of the services being utilized. Especially given that the hospital was in a relatively small town in the Central Coast of CA, I believe this woman and her son absolutely victims of circumstances. Great post by the way as I can talk about this episode quite a bit on many levels.
Hi Danielle, I didn’t see the episode but just from you synopsis, I am moved. I know many hospitals have financial aid assistance and perhaps that can be or is some form of support they can offer family of patients as well. Imagine what that mother will carry with her from now on. I’m heartbroken.
I know, you’d think, right? That’s what got my wheels turning… there was apparently no help for this poor lady, or whatever help from the hospital there was, she may have already exhausted. So that got me thinking about how there are always people looking for ways to help and volunteer and there is a HUGE community around the whole “coach surfing” thing. Why not combine the two to supplement whatever other options are out there, particularly when formal hospital resources and aid have been used up already.