Just recently I was meeting with someone in my office when I looked out of my window at the courtyard and I noticed that, suddenly out of the blue on a very beautiful sunny day, a number of our employees were coming together and they were creating what looked like a party. And being curious I opened up the window and asked how can they be putting together some sort of event if I don't know what it is. So I opened the window and I shouted at a few of the staff there, ‘What's going on, is there something I’ve missed? And a staff member came over to say to me we’re having a wedding. I said, ‘Since when did we allow people to have weddings in our courtyard? Even though it's hugely beautiful we just don't do that.’
She went on to explain to me that we had a gentleman who was on the bone marrow transplant unit who was dying and his death would be imminent in a matter of a few days. His daughter had planned to be married in the next week and he wanted nothing more before he died than to see his daughter get married, but it didn't look like that was going to happen. And so our staff spread the word throughout the hospital and suddenly we had this beautiful wedding set with chairs and white covers and our own chaplain was there to perform the service. We had a reception second to none. Our bakery here put together a beautiful wedding cake and this family had a beautiful wedding and this father came with his nurses to give his daughter away. I don't know of a better story as to how our staff responds to patients or how we create the patient experience than that.
Later I was at an event in the community and there was a gentleman who came up to me. He said, ‘You don't know me but I know your hospital and your hospital is phenomenal. My friend just died yesterday and your hospital created a priceless moment for him when he was able to give his daughter away at her wedding there. He talked about that right up to his death.’
I think about those stories, there's not just one, and I can tell more stories like it that would warm anyone's heart on any given day.
