Treasure Valley health heroes
Unsung heroes across the Valley make hospital stays less lonely, help us see doctors when we’re broke, or step in when we’re sick enough to need help at home.
Getting care to everyone
Dr. Penny Beach, a family medicine doctor, never would label herself a hero.
Too embarrassing. But she gets up every morning knowing her work at Terry Reilly Health Services never will be dull.
At the nonprofit medical clinics in Canyon County, she treats patients with unusual diseases most Idaho doctors never see in a lifetime of practice. She treated an immigrant with leprosy, a stigmatizing and potentially disfiguring disease with a history as old as the Bible. Today, medicine cures the illness. She saw a patient with neurosyphilis, an infection of the brain or spinal cord that hits people who have untreated syphilis for many years.
"I never know who is going to walk through the door," Beach said. "It’s almost like practicing Third World medicine minutes from my home."
Other patients have chronic conditions such as diabetes or psychiatric illnesses that raged uncontrolled because patients couldn’t afford ongoing treatment. All of that, and Beach makes less money than she would practicing someplace other than a nonprofit clinic where patients pay on a sliding-fee scale, depending on their income.
She never has practiced elsewhere and says she won’t until the U.S. creates a health-care system that leaves no one out.
"I have a philosophical belief that until we get the inequities out of health-care funding in this country, I feel for me, personally, I couldn’t work anywhere else."
About 70 percent of patients at Terry Reilly clinics lack health insurance.
While some are working immigrants from Mexico who are in the country illegally, many others who utilize the clinic are residents who work at gas stations, discount retailers and other jobs that don’t offer health insurance — at least not affordable insurance.
A four-legged hero
Sadie may be the best medicine for dog-loving hospital patients. For three years, Sadie, a purebred yellow Labrador retriever, has been a hero wearing a bandanna instead of a cape around her neck as she cruises hospital rooms, looking for patients who want to pet her or lie in bed with her.
Her owner, Meridian resident Lesa Jensen, 45, takes Sadie weekly to several Valley hospitals, including Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise.
"It warms your heart, and it’s a comfort," occupational therapist Pam Clausen said of Sadie and other therapy dogs. "The touch can be very comforting and soothing, and it’s somebody else to talk to."
"They are really nice," patient Eva Savage said of dogs as she pet Sadie’s face. "I had several of them," she said. But over the years, she said, "My dogs have died."
Savage, of Gooding, was in Saint Al’s after a flareup of Guillain-Barré syndrome, an inflammatory disorder of nerves outside the brain and spinal cord.
Jensen and Sadie have been a pair of health heroes ever since Jensen and her husband bought her as a puppy just 8 weeks old. Her husband didn’t want a dog, but for Jensen it was love at first sight.
Jensen says Sadie is a working dog, which means her ancestors traditionally hunted or herded for their masters.
"I found out very quickly ... she needed a job," Jensen said.
Through a friend, she learned of the pet therapy program, and Sadie went through rigorous training provided locally through Therapy Dogs Inc., a Wyoming-based company, to determine whether she had what it took to deal gently with fragile hospital patients. She did.
Hospital visits last two to four hours, depending partly on demand for Sadie’s services.
"There have been instances where Sadie is in the bed, and the patient and Sadie fall asleep," Jensen said.
Sadie gets along with absolutely everyone with one exception — Jensen’s cat.
Doctor volunteers her time
Dr. Ann Cordum, a Boise doctor of internal medicine, took an unusual volunteer job when she retired at age 41. She gave up some of her free time to see patients with chronic health problems at the Garden City Community Clinic.
"They are all wonderful patients," said Cordum, who previously worked at an internal medicine clinic near Eagle Road and Interstate 84 with wealthier, mostly insured patients. "Their illnesses may be the same, but they (Garden City clinic patients) come to us with their chronic illnesses not well-managed. These people may not know where their next meal is coming from."
But they are, by and large, very good about keeping their appointments, she said. Patients come from all walks of life and include fast-food workers and struggling artists.
Cordum, along with Dr. Gretchen Kohler, also an internist, donate four hours a week, from about 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. or so on Tuesdays, to treat patients with diabetes, hypertension, depression and other illnesses that need to be monitored to avoid serious complications. Care is free for patients who lack Medicare, Medicaid or other health coverage and whose income is low enough to meet clinic guidelines. For many patients, medical monitoring is a necessity, not a luxury. Diabetics whose illness gets out of control risk blindness, kidney damage, even limb amputations.
Genesis World Mission Inc., a nondenominational Christian organization, runs the clinic. Dr. Karl Watts, a familiar face in Valley charitable circles, founded the clinic and still works there.
The Garden City clinic provides free psychiatric care, physical therapy, treatment of illnesses, dental care and limited medication. It also refers patients to a list of more than 200 area specialists who agree to see a limited number of clinic patients for free.
Last year, the clinic saw about 500 patients. In fall 2007, Cordum became the Garden City clinic’s medical director.
ISU-Boise fills big need
Students who want to be paramedics, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, mental-health counselors or other health-care providers likely can get the job training they need at the Idaho State University campus in Boise.
The school, with its main campus in Pocatello, fills a vital niche in a state starving for health-care providers of all stripes. ISU’s mission in Boise and at its main campus is to keep the state supplied with health professionals, many of whom have their pick of jobs when they graduate. The facility’s newest program involves two years of training to become a physician’s assistant. PAs often work with doctors to diagnose and treat everything from common colds to chronic illnesses such as diabetes.
States such as Idaho, with fewer doctors than the national average, tend to have the most physician’s assistants and other mid-level health practitioners. They staff clinics and hospital emergency rooms and can work in cancer centers or other clinics if they have specialized training. The program has room for 20 students with science backgrounds and bachelor’s degrees. It filled up fast in fall 2007, when it started, hospital spokeswoman Chris Gabettas said. The pay is good: $34.17 an hour, according to national data.
That’s not all going on at the campus. Researchers are working on several projects, including the connection between hearing loss in kids and their use of MP3 players and iPods. In the human patient simulation laboratory, health-care providers from rural areas practice dealing with difficult health cases.
The lab uses manikins who breathe, gasp in pain, throw up and even die if they get the wrong care. The idea is to help doctors who won’t see many of these tough cases, but who need to be prepared just in case.
Bringing comfort to the ill
No one dies alone at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center, thanks to the sisters of the Holy Cross who serve there.
Several times a month, patients die at the hospital without family or friends to watch over them. The hospital has five nuns, a large number for a Holy Cross hospital in the West, Sister Alice Mary Quintana said.
In 2006, nuns began sitting at the bedsides of such patients in four-hour shifts, 24 hours a day. The nuns also sit with families’ sick relatives long enough for exhausted spouses and adult children to grab meals or take breaks.
Quintana also coordinates 54 volunteer nurses from 17 congregations in Ada and Canyon counties who are part of the Parish Health Program. The registered nurses, who come from Catholic, Presbyterian, Nazarene and other churches, help meet the emotional, physical and spiritual needs of the sick in their congregations.
Praying with families is a tough skill to master, and she bases her prayers on the premise that we are all spiritual beings, regardless of whether we attend church. Quintana doesn’t make promises to the sick about what God will do. Her prayers focus on courage and acceptance, not on promises of cures.
"I don’t know what God is going to do," she said. "You can’t promise somebody something that you have no control over."
A retirement job
Boisean Cecil Link is a 77-year-old unsuited for retirement, so he helps cancer patients at St. Luke’s Mountain States Tumor Institute Boise four days a week.
He clues in patients to the closest parking spots and makes sure the institute has enough coffee, juice and newspapers to last the day. Patients make the job worthwhile.
"I visit with them a little bit, try to make them feel more relaxed and comfortable," he said.
Hero seems like a bit much to describe what he does, Link said. "There are a lot of people who probably fit the job as well as I do." His favorite part is talking. "I enjoy visiting with the people here," he said. "The out-of-town people probably are lonelier than the local people, and they enjoy visiting more," he said. Patients come to MSTI Boise from as far away as La Grande, Ore.
Link gets out of bed at 5:30 a.m. four days a week to be at work by 7:30. That gives him time to check the coffee, juice and newspapers. He hangs out in the MSTI parking garage where he can see both entrances, looking for people who need something — a kind word, a wheelchair, a driver. Link took the job at MSTI Boise about 10 years ago.
He is eligible for health benefits but doesn’t need them. That’s not why he works. He wants to do something that matters. After he retired at age 63 from a 37-year job with a Boise dairy, he discovered that retirement wasn’t what he expected.
"I spent one winter at home, and it was the longest winter of my life," he said.
He rules with his eyes
Joe Harris can’t move his body, so he runs a nonprofit agency called Extra Hands for ALS with his eyes and his agile brain. Computer software he directs with eye movements helps him communicate, and an army of volunteers serves as his arms and legs.
The Boise-based agency uses high school- and college-age volunteers to help people like Harris who are diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS.
Volunteers develop deep bonds with other families and with their communities. They also get experience for health care careers.
Sarah Barsness, assistant manager of the Boise chapter, says working with Joe is not like working for other bosses. Joe has verve times 10. "He has a lot that he wants to get done, and he is very, very devoted to working with people with ALS," Barsness said.
Extra Hands chapters nationwide operate on annual budgets of $75,000 each in government grants and donations. Volunteers help people with ALS with tasks the rest of us take for granted, like tearing open mail, cleaning the house or doing yard work. For more information about how you can volunteer or to learn more about about Extra Hands, visit ExtraHands.org. (Click on "About Us" and scroll to the bottom for a link to the Boise chapter.)
Harris’ ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a neurological illness that makes it increasingly difficult for him to move, even as his brain remains vital and active. He cannot speak, and he cannot breathe on his own. The disease is fatal, but Harris refuses to give up.
"I want my family and friends to be proud of me, especially my (7-year-old) daughter," Harris, 36, wrote in an e-mail. "I want her to understand that the most important thing you can do in life is have compassion toward others and give back to society in the form of helping those that may be less fortunate," he wrote.
Among Harris’ goals for the agency is to boost the number of families who get "extra hands."
In 2007, the agency helped about 17 people with the disease. Statistically, about 40 to 50 families in the Valley may live with someone who has the disease. Harris learned he had ALS as a newlywed just starting his career. It still is hard. "It makes me sad and sometimes depressed to think I’ll have to leave my family someday," he said. "It also makes me angry to have to live my life so differently than I want to.
"But the love of my family and my quest to make the Boise chapter ... the very best it can be, often leads me away from those emotions and gets me back on track."
