By Patricia Francis Good

When my mother got to the final stage of life, she told me she was ready for Hospice Care. I called VNA & Hospice of South Texas and after evaluating her condition, they enrolled my mother into their program. But mother didn’t die right away. Under the excellent care she was given, she lived another two years.

So, when this same Hospice agency called me a few years after my mother had died to see if I would join the staff as their Public Relations Director, I immediately accepted the invitation and was grateful for the opportunity to pay forward in some small way for the care that my mother had received. This job was very personal to me.

By that time I had worked for several non profit organizations and knew the challenges they faced. However, this was going to be a little harder. I always had a good story to tell my donors and the press in the past and how their donations would help make dreams come true. I wondered how would I tell any stories of success when all our patients would die?

My first day on the job I was surprised to learn that my staff were each given a budget to purchase donuts and other goodies to give to nurses, doctors, and other referral sources to entice them to give us patients. This didn’t seem right to me to bribe referral sources for patients. I sat down with my boss and told her that as a non profit we have a higher standard of ethics. Donors want to know that their contribution, small or large, was making a difference in the lives of people we served, not paying what I called a “bribe” to get patients. That didn’t past what I call “the smell test”.

My boss asked me if I had any ideas. I told her I would think about it and get back to her within the next couple of days. And that’s how I came up with the idea of rolling that money into a patient care account for a program I called “ANGELS IN THE FIELD”. This is how it worked. If a referral source could tell us some small act of kindness we could provide for the patient, then we would act on their suggestion. Instead of donuts, the reward for the referring person was naming them our ANGEL IN THE FIELD for the month. Many of the nurses I proposed this program to said it was about time! They loved the idea of doing something for the patient, and said this was much better than getting donuts!

As it turned out, the acts of kindness towards the patients were incredible! Each month I would frame a photo of the Angel in the Field with some of our staff who had cared for the patient and wrote their story below. I hung these framed stories on the walls of the conference room where our Board of Directors met each month. Now, not only did the staff have great stories to tell about our work but the Board of Directors were now comfortable talking about their passion for hospice as they told these stories too to their friends and families.

So, for several years the Angels in the Field Program provided many acts of kindness to our patients above and beyond the normal services we gave them. Then the agency was sold to Christus Santa Rosa Hospital and the program ended and I was laid off.

I have four stories that stood out in my mind as exceptional expressions of compassion and extraordinary people who made a difference in the lives of our patients and their families.

1) Dr. Charles Giesey, was one of our volunteers and a retired dentist. He suggested we pay for dental work on a hospice patient who had such pain from abscessed teeth that eating and drinking were extremely painful. He made it possible for this patient to be seen at the University of Texas Health Science Center Dental School where he had some teeth extractions and additional dental work done. Charles said the patient immediately started feeling better and tasted solid food for the first time in a very long time.

2) Mary LeBlanc, LVN who worked for our hospice suggested we purchase an artificial larynge for a patient who years ago had sent his artificial larynge in for repairs and never received it back. He had great difficulty communicating with his caregivers and his family. This piece of medical equipment was above and beyond our normal course of treatment, but under the Angels in the Field Program we were able to pay for it and therefore add value to the services that the patient was receiving which improved his quality of life significantly by being able to communicate better with his family, friends, and caregivers.

3) Sister Rose Marie Cameron of the Discalced Carmelite Nuns of San Antonio. She was the primary caregiver of another nun who was one of our patients. During the day, Sister Rose Marie and all the other sisters worked in other parts of the convent while the patient was left alone in the infirmary. Sister Rose Marie was worried about leaving her alone and needed some kind of communication system that was mobile and could be used to check up on the patient. The problem was solved with two way radios which allowed the sisters to monitor the patient and call for back up if needed. The nuns were big Spurs fans – our San Antonio NBA basketball team, so a visit from Sean Elliott, one of the players who they prayed for during his kidney operation was brought to the monastery for a memorable visit with the patient and all the nuns.

4) Sylvia Jackson was a manager of a Valero gas station. One night an elderly woman walked into her gas station. She seemed very upset. Sylvia asked what was wrong. The woman told her that her husband was dying in our Inpatient Center and she had been called to come immediately. But she had gotten lost, was running out of gas so she can stopped at the Valero gas station. Sylvia put gas in her car using her own credit card, got the phone number of our Inpatient Center and called to tell them she had this woman with her and needed directions to the Center. Sylvia drove her to the Center where our staff was waiting in the parking lot ready to rush her into the building and to the room where her husband lay dying. A few moments after the wife arrived at her husband’s bedside, he took his last breath.

Mother Teresa once said, “We can do no great things, just small things with great love”. This is what I witnessed again and again with these every day Angels who made such a difference in the lives of our patients. I wish I could have run the program longer, but I know these small acts of kindness were greatly appreciated by our hospice patients whose pain & suffering were eased just a little bit during the last days of their lives.

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