Page 155 - Vibrant Living Scrapbook

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A Heart for Care Giving
Christy says she “always had a heart” for the kind of work she does as a nurses’ aide in a South Carolina nursing home, but not until the organization began converting to the Household Model did her compassion and natural leadership abilities truly unfurl.
Permanent staff assignments were among the first changes made. One of Christy’s assigned residents was “Maude.” Bed-ridden and mute for more than a year, Maude no longer chewed her food, subsisting instead on a spoon-fed, puree diet.
One day while eating a graham cracker, Christy noticed Maude looking at her and moving her lips in a chewing fashion.
“I asked her if she could chew, and she said ‘yes’... that was the first time she had spoken to me.”
Aware that a bit of cracker would quickly dissolve in saliva whether or not it was chewed, Christy cast aside fear of a reprimand and placed a few crumbs in Maude’s mouth. “She chewed and chewed and swallowed and asked for more.”
Christy alerted other staff until a doctor was called in and officially confirmed that Maude could chew. She was transitioned to a solid food diet
and began talking again. Maude lived for six more months and re-established her relationship with her daughter.
“No amount of money can buy that,” says Karen, the administrator.
She and Christy agree Maude’s resurrection never would have happened in the old nursing home...there just wasn’t the trust and teamwork that now exists in the Household Model.
Also, “It’s like you can do more for residents you are permanently assigned to...it’s a wonderful feeling,” adds Christy.
Before the conversion, Christy was on the verge of quitting. She had been wrongly “written up” by a supervisor for some alleged oversight. Karen – then the director of nursing – sat down with her for a talk.
“I said, ‘please don’t quit, I need you here’... and she didn’t...that really meant a lot to me,” Karen recalls. “Christy and I have built a high degree of trust (in the Household Model) and there’s no doubt in my mind she has the best interest of the elders at heart.”