No one wants to be in the hospital over the holidays, but some hospitals take special pains to share some holiday cheer with their patients.
At New Jersey's Morristown Medical Center, for example, volunteers decorate the entire hospital for Christmas and Hanukkah, including 30 7-foot trees, Becker's Infection Control & Clinical Quality reported. The neonatal intensive care unit at St. Charles Health System in Bend, Oregon, encourages families to pen what they're thankful for on the feathers of paper turkeys, which then hang over the babies' cribs.
Chilton Medical Center in Pompton Plains, New Jersey, provides free traditional Thanksgiving dinners to employees and visitors alike, and to patients whose dietary restrictions allow it, according to the Becker's article.
"For any hospital that truly wants to provide patient-centered care, celebrating holidays in the hospital is an absolute must," registered nurse Sara Mosher, a registered nurse in the St. Charles Health System, said in the article.
At Alexian Brothers Women and Children's Hospital in Chicago, volunteers and donor companies have put up holiday lights around the hospital and handed out gifts to hospitalized patients and their families. Cadence Health Central DuPage Hospital, also in the Chicago area, takes pictures of children with Santa, who also hands out gifts.
And while most patients would probably be anywhere than in a hospital bed over the holidays, the number of elective surgeries goes up over the holidays, FierceHealthcare previously reported. Surgeons say some patients want to have their surgeries before their health insurance plans and deductibles reset in January, while others want to recuperate at home while they have time off of work and family available to help them recover.
For more information:
- read the Becker's article