Compassionate Care

Last Monday morning Verline Franklin was experiencing severe chest pains.

A diabetic, she was also aware of fluctuations in her blood sugar as her energy was sapped.

She was, in her words, a walking rag doll.

So she piled into her car for the hour-long drive over to Bay Medical Center.

At the emergency room Franklin was told the wait would be a minimum of four hours before she would see a physician or nurse.

Franklin called a relative and relayed the information.

The relative, in turn, gently reminded Franklin that the new Sacred Heart Hospital on the Gulf was opening that day.

Why go to Bay Medical Center, the relative wondered. Why not come back and go out to the new hospital around the corner.

Franklin expressed doubt, thinking the hospital had not yet opened.

The relative assured her, it had opened at 8 a.m. that morning.

So Franklin jumped, well, make that trudged, back to her car for the drive to Sacred Heart.

“I was so sick, but I got to be so happy,” Franklin said.

For starters, as she explained last Thursday morning, the hospital bracelet still on her wrist, she could claim the distinction of being the first patient admitted into the hospital at Sacred Heart.

Maybe the answer to a trivia question one day, Franklin beamed with pride and joy in recounting how the staff at Sacred Heart had told her about her status as the first patient ever admitted to the new hospital.

“They treated me like a baby,” Franklin said. “When my family came to visit me, they asked if there was anything they needed or could get them.

“The staff, the doctors, the volunteers, the housekeepers, they were all so wonderful and so caring. They are nice people out there. They care.”

Of particular note for Franklin was Dr. Tom Curry, the Port St. Joe physician who cared for Franklin during her three-day stay in the hospital.

Franklin was effusive in her praise for the doctor and his bedside manner, which Franklin’s words indicated went well beyond the pale.

“Dr. Curry treated me so nice,” Franklin said. “He was just so concerned and explained things to me. He brought things down to my level. I really appreciated that. A lot of doctors talk right over you and don’t bother to explain things in ways you can understand.

“Dr. Curry took care of me real good.”

Franklin noted that her wait in the emergency room was quite brief and that within no time at all she was being treated by a nurse and then Dr. Curry.

She said every person she encountered at the hospital greeted her with a smile and genuine concern, that she was never at a want for anything and that her accommodations in her private room at the hospital were five-star.

“It was like living a few days in a condo,” Franklin said with a chuckle.

She especially enjoyed the food.

Though she never had the pleasure of meeting the chef, Franklin raved about the food as if she had just come from a fine-dining experience.

“That guy can cook,” Franklin exclaimed. “Ooh, that food was good. I almost didn’t want to leave just to have him cooking for me for another day. And his plates, they looked so good. He really knew how to put his food on that plate.

“It sure didn’t look or taste like hospital food to me.”

Along with care for her ailing body Franklin also received balm for the soul, a point that Sacred Heart Health Systems have emphasized since first proposing construction of the hospital.

The company, after all, sees its mission as based on the Catholic Daughters of Charity, an outreach for the body, mind and spirit. That mission is underscored by the presence in the main lobby of a chapel.

Father Tommy Dwyer of St. James’ Episcopal Church in Port St. Joe, one of a number of local pastors who rotate at the hospital, came to see and soothe Franklin during her stay.

“He was so kind and so nice,” Franklin said. “He made me feel good and comfortable. He was a blessing.”

That, Franklin repeatedly said, pretty much defined her stay as the first admitted patient at the Sacred Heart Hospital on the Gulf.

She will need some follow-up heart care in Bay County as the Sacred Heart Hospital continues its growth and adds services and physicians, but Franklin will also know that just a short drive away is a first rate health care facility manned by first-rate staff.

“I’m driving over there (to Bay County) any more,” Franklin said. “I forgot they were open and I won’t do that again.

“I sure enough needed that help because when I went in there I was like a dishrag. Today I have energy. They did a great job because I am feeling so good. I feel real good.

“And that hospital being right here, that is nothing but a blessing, just a blessing.”

To which many in a community would respond, “Amen.”