YOU make the difference!

A final THANK YOU to all who shone a light on the amazing patient and family centered care that you provide each and every day.  Through the months of September and October VCH News highlighted the winners of the Patient and Family Centered Care contest, and included some of the nearly 300 heartfelt examples submitted across VCH acute and community.  By submitting your stories and examples, you not only brought to tears, drew awareness, and inspired your colleagues, but you validated and acknowledged when we go above and beyond in big and small ways to make an impact for our patients and families.

Here is how you do it:

Plain and simple, I do what I do because I care. Taking a quick moment out of the everyday hustle and bustle to make sure that “you” my customer knows that “I care”.  Sometimes it is simply having a conversation…

Me: “I noticed you like to get your pink birthday cake pops ever so often”. 

Customer: “Yes, getting them reminds me of the first time my mother had her first Starbucks cake pop just before she passed. I enjoy them once in a while, as it reminds me of her”.

We all have a story.  Sometimes we just need to take time to simply show that we care by listening.  At the end of the day, it feels good to have made you feel special. (Amanda, Starbucks)

On my job to make a difference – to do my work and make it clean and tidy, keeps patients healthy, keeps environment easy to work, pleasing to be in a friendly, positive, uplifting attitude.  I am happy to help the people if they need assistance, like giving them the directions, do favours for the people, help patients feel comfortable and cheer them up. (Marissa, VGH Housekeeper)

I make sure that the supplies that come in are correct, sorted and redistributed to the right areas so that the medical staff can do their jobs properly as well and my motivation for doing my job well is that I love people and their well-being. I also believe that everyone is a team and equally important. (Receiver III, Richmond In House Replenishment)

While I don’t do hands on clinical work, making sure there is enough staff members on a unit makes a difference in a patient’s day (Richmond Staffing)

I made a difference when I was taking a taxi several weeks ago from the front of VGH on a very rainy morning.  A disheveled man with his plastic bag of belongs arrived after me, also looking for a taxi to take him home as he had just been discharged.  I offered to share a cab as we were both going downtown.  On the ride, I learned that he was from the DTES and going back to a shelter that evening.  He not only shared his “story” with me but gave me great feedback on his experiences both at St. Paul’s and VGH.  We helped each other in different ways.  (And he paid for my taxi with the voucher that VGH had given him!) (Mary Ackenhusen, President and CEO)