How Can You Help?

This year, it seems as though there are more television channels than ever playing summer Christmas movies. Many of those movies focus on helping people during the holiday season. It is sad to me that it takes watching a Christmas movie to remind us that we should be willing to help others. Many say they do not have time to help people, while others say they do not have the means; if one does not want to help someone, there is always an excuse. William Gunn, a Canadian surgeon, once said, “If you can bring the slightest help or hope, especially to underprivileged people, it’s a source of satisfaction and it keeps you going.”¹

As health care providers, we are in the business of helping others medically, but many of our patients have other needs as well. The wound care center is a continual source of people with needs beyond the medical. For instance, I had seen a young, paraplegic patient with a pressure injury on their back. While managing the problem, I had asked the patient about removing the pressure from their back. The patient dropped their head and said they really could not because their wheelchair was broken. Upon a closer look, I found the entire back and one armrest of the wheelchair were missing. To use the chair, the patient had to lean on the bar across their back. This was the etiology of the ulcer.

When I had asked the patient if they were getting a new wheelchair or having the current one repaired, the patient said they were informed it would take 3 months before the wheelchair could be repaired!

At that point, I told my wife there was a patient in need of a new wheelchair. She called a friend with a wheelchair-bound family member, and that friend contacted others within the disability world to locate an individual or family with a wheelchair that was no longer in use or needed. For the price of “you can have it if you can come and get it,” we had helped the patient secure a practically new powered wheelchair! For this patient, only a series of phone calls and a wheelchair-accessible vehicle were required to get them what they needed; no longer hanging their head in despair, the patient was beaming with renewed spirit along with a healed wound.

This may seem like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but there are smaller ones all around. After this situation, I found out the nursing staff had been providing socks and shoes to many of the patients who were having problems getting them. They had taken it upon themselves to provide their patients with more than medical care—to say the least, I am very proud of my staff!

Hopefully, it will not take a holiday movie to remind us that we should help those in need. In today’s world, with the economy as it is, there may be an opportunity for you to help someone as close as next door. The question is, will you help?

As Winston Churchill once said, “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”

Terry Treadwell, MD, FACS
Editor-in-Chief, Wounds
woundseditor@hmpglobal.com