Community Benefit

Foundation Scholarship Essay

Mercy Medical Center 2009 Scholarship Winner Essay
Scholarship Funded by Mercy Healthcare Foundation
Author and Scholarship Winner: Julie Bielema

Why is it important to have a local hospital, Mercy Medical Center in our community?

Compassion, dedication, excellence in care, a place where “everybody knows your name,” these are the ‘tip of the iceberg’ reasons for a person to say and truly feel that our local Mercy Medical Center is important to have in our community.

Compassion must be a pre-requisite when hiring staff at Mercy Medical Center, as every person there has great compassion for their patients. I had firsthand experience with this asset when my grandpa was a patient. My grandpa, parents and many other relatives and friends commented on the amount of compassion exhibited by all staff…. whether it was nursing, housekeeping or any other department he went to during his stay.

The dedication at Mercy is obvious. Several staff members we talked to during grandpa’s stay had been with the hospital for ten, twenty or more years. Hand in hand with dedication, is excellence in care. Each and every person we met had obviously taken his or her careers to a high level.

To be able to travel only a short distance for excellent, compassionate health care is important to most, if not nearly all patients, potential patients and their visitors…. especially in this time of economic struggles. With much unemployment surrounding us, and/or loss of hours in the workforce, using less gas and time is huge. Traveling ‘out of town’ is a big inconvenience and expense for many.

Patients feel comfortable in a place where “everybody knows your name”. Even after grandpa left Mercy Medical Center and became a visitor the next time he was there, many nurses and aides remembered him, calling him by name, asking how he was doing. How special grandpa felt!

Mercy Medical Center provides many community outreach programs, again allowing their patients to ‘stay local’. The programs I know about are; cardiac rehabilitation, healing hearts, radiation therapy, diabetes education, and the ability to have a sleep study done (grandpa needs this!). One would only have to call the hospital to find out about more services.

With everyone’s continued support to Mercy, we will continue to have a local hospital we love and are proud to say we support.

Compassion, dedication, commitment…. I am proud to know that Mercy Medical Center “knows my name”.