Ministry’s holiday greetings 3-14 PERIODICAL RATE PUBLICATION
DECEMBER 15, 2020 VOLUME 36, NUMBER 14
Adapt, celebrate: Catholic health facilities serve up holiday cheer By JULIE MINDA and LISA EISENHAUER
In usual times, the annual Christmas celebration at the Bellbrook continuum of care facility in Rochester Hills, Michigan, is a grand affair. Throngs of residents and their family members stroll the decorated grounds, nosh on hors d’oeuvres and take in holiday entertainment provided by local performers. But with COVID-19 infection rates surging in Michigan and throughout much of the U.S., senior residences and health care facilities are reinstituting strict viral containment protocols and visitation restrtictions that they may have eased last summer. Recognizing that this year more than ever everyone needs a little Christmas to make spirits rise again, staff of Catholic facilities are adapting holiday celebrations. Large gatherings are out, and celebrity visits, including by the jolly man himself, may have to take place over Zoom. Libby Delaney, executive director of Trinity Health’s Senior Communities team in Rochester, Michigan, and Bellbrook’s administrator, said since musicians and other performers won’t be able to come into the facility this
SSM Health’s ‘Ukes for Dads’ strums on the heartstrings of NICU babies Intimate ukulele performances forge father-baby bonds
Alayna Jimenez, a patient at CHRISTUS Health’s The Children’s Hospital of San Antonio, shows off the miniature float she made for the hospital’s virtual Thanksgiving parade. Jessica Clayton, child life coordinator, says the festivities at the hospital may look a little different this year, “but we will still definitely ensure that our kiddos and their families get to celebrate.”
Christmas, staff will come a caroling. And while they’ve put a lid on Christmas buffets, the food service team has plans to plate scrumptious holiday meals on decorative tray mats and deliver them to the
residents’ rooms. Staff are stuffing stockings with gifts selected to delight each recipient. Staff are taking Christmas pictures of residents and Continued on 15
Adding a dog park makes senior campus friendlier to pet owners By KATHLEEN NELSON
In this pre-pandemic photo, Paul Hagelberg, his wife, Ursula Weddell, and Schatzi, a Pekinese-teacup terrier mix, enjoy the dog park at Mercy Health – Oakwood Village in Springfield, Ohio. The pet-friendly senior living center opened the wheelchair-accessible park so residents could socialize as they exercise their dogs. Staff bring their pets too.
Mercy Health–Oakwood Village Senior Living in Springfield, Ohio, already was pet-friendly. The addition of a dog park has made the community pet-friendlier. “As a pet owner myself, I’m excited to find a way to make Oakwood Village a more comfortable place to live for an active senior,” said Cheryl Hainey, gift officer for the Mercy Health Foundation of Clark and Champaign counties. Hainey hatched the idea on a chilly day last fall, when she saw a resident of Oakwood Village walking her dog. The woman was bundled up in a heavy coat, trudging along with a walker and her dog on a leash. “We consider ourselves a pet-friendly community,” Hainey said of the 72-acre Continued on 2
Aaron and Maeve Dohogne celebrate baby John’s homecoming Sept. 15 after more than a year in the NICU at SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital in St. Louis. A music therapist there taught Aaron to play simple chords on the ukulele and use music to bond with his son. By NANCY FOWLER
Aaron Dohogne has fond memories of enjoying music with his dad when he was growing up in the 1990s. He recalls listening to the Beatles and Roy Orbison blasting from the radio in his father’s rusty Toyota truck. Now, Dohogne and his son John also share a love of music. Their bond was forged not on the road but in the neonatal intensive care unit of SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital in St. Louis, thanks to “Ukes for Dads.” John was born in July 2019 with a diaphragmatic hernia, a hole in his diaphragm Continued on 16
Shuttle ferries residents of southeast Michigan out of isolation By LISA EISENHAUER
A shuttle van that provides free rides to Chelsea, Michigan, for residents of two rural communities, both without a grocery store or pharmacy, got on the road this summer courtesy of St. Joseph Mercy Chelsea. The hospital is a joint venture between Saint Joseph Mercy Health System, a subsidiary of Trinity Health, and University of Michigan Health. Nancy Graebner, the hospital’s president and chief executive, said a Graebner community health needs assessment last year showed social isolation was one of the biggest concerns among
people in the rural parts of the hospital’s primary service area in southeast Michigan, including in the towns of Manchester and Stockbridge. Those towns’ populations have stayed fairly stable in recent decades at about 2,200 for Manchester and 1,300 for Stockbridge. However, some businesses have vanished. Stockbridge has no physician practices; Manchester has one primary care physician. “We’ve watched both communities lose basic services, such as access to a physician practice, primary care in particular, and then grocery stores for fresh foods, and a pharmacy,” Graebner said. “Residents really do need to be able to travel to Chelsea to receive those types of services.” Continued on 16
The WAVE shuttle bus funded by St. Joseph Mercy Chelsea in Michigan crosses the River Raisin bridge in Manchester. The free bus service combats isolation by transporting rural residents to services including groceries, pharmacies and restaurants.