A patient came into the 9th floor who had several health issues and was unable to care for himself. He lives with his mother as his primary caregiver. She called several times during the week to check on her son and stated that she could not come up to see him because she was very sick herself. She ended up in ICU over the weekend and he was able to go down and visit her one night. That night the mother coded and passed away. Our patient does not have any family who is able to help take care of him and really wanted to attend his mother's funeral.
On the morning of the funeral, we learned that it was that day at 1500 and he wanted to go. He is stable and Dr. T approved that he was able to leave the hospital briefly to attend the funeral. A social worker got a wheelchair van set up to take the patient and bring him back but we needed an RN to go and stay with the patient while he was at the funeral. I started contacting my RNs to see if anyone would be willing to come in on their day off and go with him to his mother's funeral since we could not pull a nurse off the floor to go for that long. I called Dorothy Watson and as soon as I started explaining to her the situation, she immediately said yes without me even getting the question out. I asked her "would you be willing to come in and ride with him to the funeral, stay with him during the funeral and then ride in the van back with him." Dorothy said "of course" without taking any time to think twice. The patient was so thankful that he was able to go to his mother's funeral because of Dorothy being willing to come in on her day off, with very short notice. Not many nurses are so willing to give up their day off to attend a funeral of someone they do not know, especially with such little notice. Dorothy is always so caring and kind and puts her patients first no matter the situation. She is a great example of the kind of RNs we want at CoxHealth.