This past week our unit received new bedside tables for each patient room. Plant Operations came to the unit and exchanged each patient's bedside table, replacing it with a new one.
Shortly thereafter, one of our patient's alerted the primary nurse, Gabe Pantoja and the charge nurse that their glasses and a necklace were missing and that they last recall them being on their bedside table, which was just removed from their room and replaced with a new one. The unit charge nurse called Plant Operations to determine where the old bedside tables were taken, only to be told that they were placed in dumpsters outside of the building. The primary nurse, Gabe, and the charge nurse requested the location of the dumpster and left the unit. They went outside and located the dumpster where the bedside tables were piled up (24 or more tables were removed from our unit and others). The charge nurse started to climb into the dumpster but Gabe insisted that he be the one to go in. Gabe climbed up into the dumpster, waded through debris and trash that was piled up and searched each bedside table until he finally located not only the glasses, but also the patient's necklace, which were returned to the patient. The patient was overjoyed to have their belongings returned to them!
Gabe and the charge nurse went above and beyond to locate and return these precious items to the patient, after it appeared that they were lost.