Keeping their best interests at heart
Her 90-something father, the friend said, had been told he could no longer drive.
He hadn’t been driving much anyway, but the first thing he did upon hearing of his loss of driving-privileges was to steal away in a family vehicle and drive to a grocery store and, later, to a pizza shop.
The account reminded me of my grandfather, who many decades ago rolled his wheelchair to the end of a hall in his residence, unlatched the door and proceeded apace across the parking lot.
When people found him in his overturned wheelchair, he was laughing.
Such stories strike terror in the hearts of health care providers and family members—and rightly so—because both tales could have had vastly different and perhaps terrible conclusions.
Yet, their authors’ escapades also remind us that in any care situation, we are dealing with individuals—individuals with unique personalities and pasts, with, yes, occasional stubborn streaks and often-captivating humor.
And at Diakon we recognize and love that fact!
As an organization that has been successfully serving people of all ages since 1868, we wouldn’t have it any other way. We take time to know each resident and client on the individual level.
Indeed, we must do that—because it’s the only way we can truly uphold a core value of our mission: That “all people are unique gifts of God to be valued.”
Valuing them—according them the dignity they deserve—means we care for our residents and clients as we would care for ourselves, keeping their best interests always at heart, helping to make their worlds whole again to the extent possible and, yes certainly, keeping them safe! —
So no unauthorized car excursions and certainly no wheelchair elopements but, yes, acknowledgement and honor of the traits and experiences that underscore each unique lives.
William Swanger, MA, APR, Fellow PRSA
Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications
