While some at Infirmary Health have family that will visit them today on Thanksgiving, not all do. Some might be from a nursing home, with their only relatives too frail or feeble themselves and unable to make the trip to the hospital for a visit. Others just have family that have truly abandoned them. Not every Thanksgiving is a happy one for some. But fortunately, we have an extremely emotionally intuitive staff who pick up on the misty eyes or the sadness on a face. Our mission at Infirmary Health is L.I.F.E.—Leadership, Integrity, FAMILY, Excellence. Did you get that third one? FAMILY. We LOVE to love on people. We adore being able to bring a smile to a face and be that “stand in” family member. We have a staff in Food & Nutrition who love to nourish a belly but more importantly, nourish a soul. There will be turkey and dressing and all the trimmings (we are in the south—it’s “dressing” down here, but that is another whole debate for another time).
While there will be pumpkin pie-a-plenty, there will be another southern Thanksgiving staple, and my personal favorite, sweet potato pie—don’t knock it until you’ve tried it! There will be gallons of giblet gravy and cascades of cranberries. And you never know, you might even find some cute little “turkeys” in the nursery—we have volunteers who are known for their knitting and crocheting skills!
If there is one thing you can be certain of, there will be extra special care taken to make sure our patients feel like they are a part of our family. In addition to our mission, we also have another motto called “DUO”. It’s our full time customer service model and it’s a reminder to do unto OTHERS. We want to go out of our way to make every customer, whether it’s an employee, a patient, or someone stocking the Coke machine, feel special. And what better day of the year to take DUO to another level, right? After all, we have SO much to be thankful for.
Happy Thanksgiving Y’all!
