Making a Difference in Yonkers, NY

Mr. Lesser has been a patient of ours for a couple years and our home health aide, Miriam, has been taking care of him from the beginning. Miriam goes above and beyond in her duties every day to ensure she’s making a difference in her patient’s life.

Mr. Lesser’s story stood out to us this month because we were so impressed with our aide’s dedication and the direct impact it was having on our patient’s quality of life. When it came time for Miriam to take her well-deserved vacation, she requested that her replacement aide come in a day before she was leaving. Since this is not routine, as our coordinators and field nurse supervisors are generally the one’s to review the patient’s plan of care and specifics with the replacement aide, we were curious and asked her, “why?” Well, to our delight, her answer was “so I can teach the covering aide how to take care of my patient the right way.” We were so proud to learn the measures she takes to make sure Mr. Lesser is comfortable all day and leads a healthy life that we just had to tell their story.

A big part of Mr. Lesser’s plan of care with us is meal preparation, which includes monitoring his sugar intake - and apparently, he can be a little devious about his eating habits! Miriam sometimes has to hide the breads and the sweets to ensure he doesn’t indulge past a certain amount when she is not there. That’s not all - Miriam routinely goes to great lengths to make sure he eats properly and consumes the right foods for his diagnosis.

More often than not, Mr. Lesser is on his own during meal times. During the days, he goes back and forth to a community center in his building to socialize. When Miriam arrives for her shift at 4pm she prepares a healthy meal, sits with Mr. Lesser while he eats, and then begins the rest of her duties when he returns back to the community center in the evening to play cards. This is when Miriam takes care of Mr. Lesser’s home; cleaning, doing laundry, and back to the food prep to make sure her client has a healthy snack when he returns home and a breakfast prepared for the morning to start his day off right. Even though Miriam does not work for Mr. Lesser in the mornings or on the weekends, she is sure to prepare enough food and leave it labeled in the refrigerator - topping it off with a written list of what should be eaten, and when.

It’s caregivers like Miriam who remind us how the simplest things, like daily and healthy meal preparation, can make such a difference!

- The Yonkers Branch