Sherry is one of my co-workers in ARU. I cared for a patient in the ARU who was a 70-year-old lady from Williamston who had come to our facility to have an invasive procedure performed in Radiology. Not only was this lady elderly and frail, she was also fighting cancer. She did not have any family members accompany her that day for this procedure. I gathered from my conversations with the patient and time spent with her during the course of her outpatient stay with us, that she does not have many resources available for assistance with travel and transportation to/from Greenville for her medical appointments.
The patient was discharged and it wasn't until 2 days later that it was discovered that her bag of home medications had inadvertently fallen out of her purse into the back portion of the closet of her room in ARU. This bag had at least 6-7 bottles of home medications in it that the patient needed on a daily basis. The patient called ARU when she realized that her medications were missing. Once they were discovered, I contacted the patient to inform her. I asked her when she would be able to come back to the hospital to pick her medications up and she told me that it would be at least one week before she would have any transportation available to make the trip from Williamston.
Sherry lives in Williamston but in a different direction than this patient (~15-20 miles away from her normal route home). Sherry volunteered to deliver the patient's medications to her home after getting off of work. We obtained directions to the patient's home and Sherry went above and beyond to make sure this patient's home medications were returned to her despite her uncertainty of where she was going. Sherry stated to me that the patient did not need to miss one more day of her medications, and we both knew that the patient could not afford to have to have them replaced.
When you are a nurse inside the hospital, it is rare that you would venture out into the community in which a patient that you have cared for may live. Usually, your time caring for that patient ends after they are discharged from the hospital. Sherry had never even met this patient. She was not the nurse who cared for her during her outpatient visit. Sherry had the kindness in her heart and a true Florence Nightingale spirit and drive to make sure this patient's health was placed as a top priority!
A quote from Florence Nightingale states,
"I attribute my success to this - I never gave or took any excuse."
Thank you so much Sherry!