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Details have been changed to protect our patients' identities.
Jan was living on the streets of Rochester for over nine months, sleeping in doorways and under bridges. She came into our office one morning because she heard that there was free food there, and told us that people told her we're nice, so she figured she'd come get some food. After a couple of days of eating breakfast with us, she asked our secretary if our doctors were nice people. When Dan promised that they are, she asked if one of them could see her, because she hadn't changed her socks in seven months and she was scared to.
Dr. Schultz agreed to see her immediately, and in an exam room helped take off her socks. Her feet looked like you would expect for someone that had been sleeping outside for seven months without changing her socks. The wounds on her feet were deep and profound, but her diabetes meant that she couldn't really feel them, despite the extensive infections. So we urgently got her to Highland Hospital, where she unfortunately had to have her toes on one foot amputated.
This is sad and hard, but it means she kept her feet. It means the wounds didn't cost her her legs. And she didn't die from the deep and dangerous infections that settled into her toes. Dr. Schultz's compassionate care and the surgeons at Highland helped Jan stay alive, all because she heard that we were nice.
Discharge from the hospital was difficult for Jan. It's tough to go back to the streets when you have newly amputated toes and fresh surgical wounds that require complicated dressing changes. Visiting nurses don't make home calls under bridges. And the many traumas Jan had suffered at shelters meant that she was terrified to go back to another shelter--which is why she was on the street in the first place.
So the hospital social workers reached out to Dr. Hudson, our CEO, who connected them with the Health Reach social work team. Together, they created a plan that put Jan into emergency housing and into a safe place not only where she could manage her dressing changes, but as the first step towards getting back into housing and changing her life.
Our work is about more than just providing medical, mental health and dental care. It's about seeing the whole person and addressing all of their needs with our community partners. That means our work is slow: it takes a lot of time to build trust and to break down barriers. We could use your help. Please consider a donation, or come and volunteer with us.
