On Jan. 19, volunteers will once again put their tools away and invite the community to celebrate the remodel of three rooms in the acute care portion of the hospital. The rooms will be used for chemo and infusion therapy, sleep disorder therapy and hospice services when not needed for acute care.
“This has been a big project,” Kathy Roberts, who helped coordinate this, as well as the original remodeling project, said, comparing the three-room undertaking to the original one-room project.
A group calling themselves the Triangle of Compassion, comprised of South Peninsula Hospital, South Peninsula Hospital Foundation and Hospice of Homer, has spearheaded the work. From that, a community work group was formed that included Roberts, Pat Wells, Ingeborg Rathke, Barbara Glidden, Darlene Hilderbrand, Norma Forbes and Lorna Olson.
“Ingeborg coordinated donations of quilts for the rooms. Norma is a decorator and came up with the color schemes for the rooms. Pat coordinated the artwork that will be hung in the rooms. And Barb, Kathy and I oversaw the purchasing of articles for the rooms,” said Lorna Olson. “The Foundation actually gave us upfront money to get the project going and then we did fund raising in the community to offset those expenses.”
Cash contributions and in-kind donations total an estimated $20,000.
Setting this project apart from the work done on the room in the Long Term Care Unit were code requirements for acute care rooms. For one thing, all surfaces must be capable of being sterilized. Helping ensure that compliance occurred was Larry Dallas, director of support services for SPH.
“These rooms are also med/surg rooms so they have to be available for patient use at all times,” Dallas said. “Making them remain med/surg rooms and meet the other needs was a bit of a challenge, but I think they turned out quite nice.”
Edye Rathbun, housekeeping coordinator at SPH, and her crew helped with painting, carefully scheduling their efforts around hospital needs.
“We had to work around the patient census because they are still using (the rooms) for patient care,” Rathbun said.
Each room has been given a name. “Willows Room” is named for the late Karen Willows, who was a nurse at SPH. It will eventually be used as a sleep lab.
“Solace by the Sea” is the hospital’s hospice room.
“It will be for the person and (his or her) family who chooses to do an end-of-life transition in the hospital,” said Darlene Hilderbrand of Hospice of Homer. “It’s a comfortable, homelike, supporting environment for the individual in transition.”
All rooms as SPH are double occupancy, but when “Solace by the Sea” is used as a hospice room, the remodel allows for the second bed to be removed and a hide-a-bed and comfortable seating to be installed.
“It can be converted to a place of warmth and caring where families can have that space and say good-bye to a loved one,” Olson said.
“Reflections” will be for chemo and infusion therapy, complete with a new recliner, brightly colored lap quilts and CD and DVD players increasing the comfort level of chemo and infusion therapy patients.
“There are still things that could be purchased for the rooms,” Olson said. Contributions can be sent to South Peninsula Hospital Foundation, 4300 Bartlett St., Homer, AK 99603.
The public is invited to celebrate completion of the remodel project of these rooms at SPH from 4-6 p.m. Jan. 19.
“It’s really wonderful when organizations come together and focus on a project and get great results,” Hilderbrand said. “I hope there are other ways we can come together as organizations to provide this kind of enrichment for this community.”
McKibben Jackinsky can be reached at mckibben.jackinsky@homernews.com.
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