It was about noon when a call came in to Patient Escort. The call was to discharge a patient in room X, North Tower. The instructions were to bring a wheelchair and to take the patient by the pharmacy to pick up several prescriptions on the way out the front lobby. I located a Stryker chair and headed off to the North Tower. I wasn't given the patient's name. For purposes of the report, I will call the patient Mr. S. Once there, I knocked and opened Mr. S's room door and announced as I customarily do, "You Chariot has arrived!" We made eye contact but he did not respond. In the hospital bed lay a frail, elderly 86 yr old man clad in a hospital gown. His skin appeared weathered, wrinkled, and time-worn, much like that of someone who had spent most of his life working outdoors--perhaps a farmer. As I glanced around his room, nowhere did I see flowers, cards, get-well balloons, or any sign that friends and/or family had visited him. Not at all what I had expected to see for a hospital patient preparing to go home. 2 nurses appeared in the doorway to assist the frail, elderly man to be discharged, M and Amy Woolard. Outside Mr. S's room, M began preparing paperwork for discharge. I could hear her typing information into the patient's electronic record and gathering papers for him to sign before leaving. Along with discharge papers, M brought instructions for the patient to follow at home. Amy reminded me to take Mr. S by the pharmacy to pick up prescribed medications to be taken at home. After collecting the drugs, I was asked to take Mr. S to the front lobby where a cab would be waiting to take him home. I turned my attention back to the patient. In a faint, almost whispering, barely audible voice, I could hear him saying, "I want to go home". M said, "we are getting everything ready for you to go home, Mr. S." She raised the head of his bed so that he could sign the discharge papers. As best he could, he made his mark in the required blank spaces. She then assisted him in sitting upright with his feet dangling over the bedside, revealing beneath his hospital gown underpants but no undershirt. As she turned him in the bed, he reached behind his back to close the back of his gown, realizing I guess that his backside was exposed. Amy asked, "would you like another gown to cover your back?". He nodded "yes". She located a second gown and with M's help carefully put a second gown on him, this one backward, to cover his frail, boney, naked frame. Again, he mumbled, "Home; I want to go home." M stepped back into the hallway to complete the discharge papers. A third nurse asked M if Mr. S had been given the shots that were ordered by his doctor. To which, M replied "No, he refused the shots. He was willing to take the pills but refused the shots." Again, I heard Mr. S mumble, "home."

Next, I lowered the arm of the Stryker chair and moved the footrest out of the way. Then, I positioned the chair next to the bed. Amy and M each held a hand and an upper arm to assist Mr. S to stand, pivot, and sit in the Stryker chair. They talked and encouraged him through each move as he stood, pivoted, and sat in the chair. In that moment, I could see his frail, boney frame and realized just how weak and in need of assistance he was. Amy gave me two plastic bags with his few belongings to take home--a pair of shoes and what looked like an old shirt, pants, and a pair of socks. I stepped aside so Maria could collect the signed discharge papers. Amy moved in front of Mr. S and stooped to make eye contact. "Mr. S", she said, but there was no answer. She took his hand, squatted, looked into his eye, and called his name again. Still no response. M reached out and took his other hand. She looked into his partially opened eyes, gently rubbed his arm, and said to Amy, "he feels clammy. We can't let him go like this". M and Amy then lifted Mr. S's weak body and moved him back onto the bed. Within a minute or two, he was partially alert and responsive. Again, he said, "I want to go home." To which Amy responded, "we can't let you go home, Mr. S, until we feel it is safe for you to leave the hospital." M stepped into the hall to get a blood pressure packet. Amy turned to me and said, "I think it would be best for you to return a little later when Mr. S is more responsive, and we feel confident that it is safe for him to leave the hospital." I repositioned the arm and footrest and handed Mr. S's belongings to Amy, then I stepped into the hallway and headed back to the Volunteer waiting room.

As I turned and left the room, I couldn't get my mind off Mr. S. His room was like any other room in the North Tower - sterile, devoid of anything other than a hospital bed, bedside equipment, monitors, and a television. Unlike most discharge patients, I thought to myself, Mr. S had no one with him. No one was meeting him in the hospital lobby. There were no cards to bundle up and take home. No 'get well soon' notes or 'can't wait to see you' greetings from family or friends. No flowers, nothing. He was 86 years old. He shouldn't travel home alone in a cab, with an unknown driver, taking him somewhere he called "home" and longed to return to. For the few minutes I was with him, I was deeply moved. I realized and appreciate so much the role that Amy, M, and the other nurses must have played in his hospital stay. They were his only family. They became his sole visitors and friends. They communicated with him, cared for him, loved him, showed him compassion, and treated him with dignity and respect just as they would their father or grandfather. Then I remembered Matthew 25:45 "truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me".

Mr. S was a stranger and Amy and M (and other nurses) welcomed him. Naked and they gave him clothing, sick and they cared for him, alone and they visited him. Again, I had seen nursing at its best. What a calling! What love! How fortunate I am to volunteer and witness extreme acts of kindness, respect, and love nurses give to their patients, but most especially to "the least of these".