Hospitals share Christmas joy with patients

Christmas and the period surrounding it is always a difficult time to be in a hospital for patients who are away from family and friends. Hospital staff members recognize this and make special efforts to bring cheer to those patients.

“Mount Carmel has multiple locations providing primary, urgent or emergency care in the Columbus area, and you’ll find them all showing the holiday spirit with trees, tinsel and other decorations,” said Mellissa Gallagher, communications manager for the Mount Carmel Health System. 

“All the locations have ‘ugly holiday sweater’ days for employees, and our hospitals serve special meals to patients for Christmas and New Year’s days and have free meals for employees choosing to work on those days. Infants born in the hospitals during the holiday season are given a special outer garment reading ‘Best Gift Ever.’

“Several sites have holiday parties at which employees donate items for those in need. One good example is an event at our Franklinton Healthy Living Center on Columbus’ west side at the site of the original Mount Carmel Hospital. 

“Employees there, participants in our pre-medicine program and Mount Carmel College of Nursing students have a celebration at which all bring pairs of gloves for our street medicine program which serves the homeless. 

“They also have a Giving Tree from which they select the name of a child from within the Mount Carmel staff community for whom they will purchase a gift, and they sign Christmas cards for the people the street medicine team serves.”

The gloves are part of gift bags that are presented to residents of homeless encampments and people living on the streets and to those who have recently found housing and are adjusting to their new situation. The bags include gloves, socks, toiletries, coffee mugs, cocoa packets, dish towels and other useful items, said Kathleen Buchen-Barbara, a nurse for 50 years, about 20 of them with the street medicine program.

“Whenever possible, we also try to include something with personal meaning to the recipient,” she said. “I remember one man who had found housing and was a big Ohio State fan and was thrilled to receive a Buckeye shirt last year.

“I visited about 40 people over the holidays in 2022 and expect to do the same this year. We go in pairs to talk with people, sing carols with them, see how they’re doing, lay hands on them, tell them about what assistance is available to them, especially any new resources, and just see how well-connected they are.

“This is important not just to the homeless, but to many who have found housing but can’t yet afford a phone and don’t realize everything that’s out there for them. One year, we even had Christmas trees donated to us and were able to delight some people with their very own tree.

“I absolutely love what I do, especially at this time of year when I’m able to touch people, share their wisdom, sadness and sorrows and embrace them with love,” Buchen-Barbara said. 

“I also attend the annual Christmas memorial service at Trinity Episcopal Church downtown for the homeless who have died in the past year. We read their names and say prayers, and everyone is given a lit candle. It offers a mixture of both sadness for their loss and hope that as children of God, they have gone on to something better.”

Dr. John Green, a Powell St. Joan of Arc Church parishioner and member of the Catholic Medical Association of Central Ohio, said the Christmas holidays are a time when physicians must pay closer attention to patients’ conditions.

“As a physician, there’s always a question of how to be festive at this time of year,” he said. “You need to make sure your energy level matches that of the patient and his or her family members. 

“About two-thirds of patients are happy to see me wearing an ugly sweater or a Santa hat, but you don’t want to be happy and cheerful for a patient in tragic circumstances.

“I remember one case where I wore a Christmas sweater and came to see a patient who turned out to be extremely ill, and there was no chance to change clothes or put hospital scrubs on over the sweater. 

“I thought of what an unsavory contrast my outfit must have made in the situation, but the patient didn’t seem to mind and didn’t have family with him. I’m grateful he was understanding.”

Green is a hospitalist – a physician who cares strictly for inpatients, meaning he works only inside a hospital. He worked in central Ohio for about 20 years and now practices independently and is called upon by hospitals in several areas of Ohio, particularly around Port Clinton.

“It’s surprising and sad to see the number of patients who are not anxious to be discharged during the holidays and prefer to spend them at a hospital, perhaps because they have no one close to them or they feel uncomfortable about going home for the season,” he said. 

“It’s different in most cases for people in nursing homes or other long-term care facilities. For them, these places have become home, and the staff has become a second family.”

“No one looks forward to being away from their homes and families during the holidays,” said Father Michael Lumpe, pastor of Worthington St. Michael Church and diocesan coordinator of hospital ministry. 

“It’s always good for friends and family to reach out to those in hospitals and stay connected and for hospital chaplains to provide their services, both at these times and throughout the year.”

“I’ve found that for people of faith, it’s especially crushing to not have visitors around the holidays,” said Barb Martin of Reynoldsburg St. Pius X Church, an extraordinary minister of the Eucharist who has distributed communion once a week to Mount Carmel East Hospital patients since 2010. 

“There are a lot of good, faithful hospitalized Catholics who want communion, especially on Sundays and holy days, and it’s been harder to get people to distribute the Eucharist since the start of the COVID epidemic.

“I’ve found that people of faith generally deal with illnesses much better than others do. They seem to be more grateful for being alive, and their faith helps them pull through. This is true whether they’re churchgoers or not. They find comfort in prayer and are just happy to have someone who will come to pray with them.”

“At Christmas, in addition to the gift of time that we give of ourselves to others is the greatest of all gifts – the gift of the Eucharist,” Father Lumpe said. “On Christmas Day, or on a Sunday, if you are an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion and have the permission of your pastor, consider bringing the Eucharist to a family member or loved one who is hospitalized, in a nursing or care facility or who is homebound. 

“Jesus’ great gift of the Eucharist is the best gift that we can bring to someone who cannot make it to church. It keeps them connected to the mystical body of Christ through this greatest of all sacraments.”

Father Lumpe cautions that anyone who provides the Eucharist to someone in a medical or care situation should first make certain that the patient or resident is not under an “NPO” restriction. NPO means “nothing by mouth,” from the Latin nil per os. The acronym is medical shorthand indicating a person may not eat or drink anything for a period of time because of swallowing difficulties or other reasons.