We want to recognize Sheena Helm for going above and beyond in her caring nature to our COVID-19 patient population. Sheena is a charge nurse and preceptor in the Medical ICU and had been caring for this difficult patient group since the pandemic arrived in Lubbock. She and her team have seen many difficult situations play out while their patients were isolated and afraid. Our patients remain on our unit for a long time, and we have found that we can FaceTime the patients' families to allow them to remain connected. These patients remain "stuck" in the same environment, same room, same sounds, same caregivers that are covered from head to toe. The patients cannot see any facial characteristics from anyone, aside from the occasional FaceTime call.
For Sheena, she felt this was not nearly enough and wanted to do more for our patients. Sheena decided to reach out to our loving community via social media. She was requesting items for inpatient care baskets that would include items to help bring a bit of happiness to her patients. Her goal was to help make the hospital visit a little more like home and provide activities for the patient to help occupy themselves during isolation. The response was huge as her post was shared numerous times, and even led to her sharing her mission with a local news station! She had many donations coming in and encouraged the community to help make signs for our patients, which we placed in every patient room. Sheena used her time away from the unit to collect the donations and start organizing them to bring to the hospital. She even had to rent a storage unit to store it all.
Even though the response was huge, Sheena began thinking that she could grow the donations beyond the Medical ICU. She started thinking and she could provide additional support to the rest of the patients at UMC, and maybe even send some to other hospitals. On her time off, Sheena began going to other stores and asking them if they are able to donate anything for the COVID patients. Sheena bought bins for all the COVID units in our hospital and she has been replenishing those bins with the donations she has collected. Some of these donations went to fill Christmas stockings that UMC passes out throughout the organization.
From Sheena: "This whole post took on a life of its own and honestly was and currently still is a lot more work than I thought it would be. I am continuously bringing donations up to the hospital COVID units to replenish what was used and still meeting with individuals on my days off or when I get out of work to gather more donated supplies, but I wouldn't trade this for anything. Seeing patients have a little smile and happiness in this crazy time we live in right now is 100% worth every second I work on this and every penny spent. It's brought a lot of meaning to my life and I love showing my kids what one person can do in order to make the worked a little better. This had truly been a blessing and I thank God that I'm able to give back as it has brought a little sanity to my life during this emotional and stressful time".
Note: This is Sheena's 2nd DAISY Award!