Denet Whitfield came to Savannah five years ago, grieving the loss of her parents.
Subsequent illness and two surgeries left her disabled and furthered the burden.
“I was so depressed and just totally broken,” she recalled during a conversation at St. Mary’s Community Center, an outreach program of St. Joseph’s/Candler.
There she found Sister Pat Baber and her staff who showed her a warm shoulder and programs designed to regain her health — both emotionally and physically.
The efforts at St. Mary’s Community Center in Cuyler-Brownville and a group of fellow programs targeting largely low-income individuals have earned the system a $100,000 prize for excellence in community service from the American Hospital Association’s Foster G. McGaw Health Research & Educational Trust recognizing its efforts to improve the lives of the most vulnerable, Paul P. Hinchey, president and CEO of St. Joseph’s/Candler, announced Wednesday.
He said the local health care system was selected from 150 applicants among 5,000 hospitals nationally, calling it “a 100 percent great thing.”
“Our community has won this award,” Hinchey said, adding that everybody has rallied around the effort, including city, county, Housing Authority of Savannah, social service agencies and local universities.
The national recognition “put Savannah on the map as a national health care leader,” Hinchey said during a news conference at Candler Hospital announcing the award. “St. Joseph’s/Candler and the city of Savannah won this award.”
It represents an annual commitment of $3 million from the system’s trustees over a 12-year period and it is 100 percent voluntary. That sum is over and above all charity care the system provides and represents a community commitment that is there through good and bad times, he said.
That commitment “is very significant in these tough economic times,” Hinchey said.
The award recognizes our “staying power in the community” for more than a dozen years, he said.
In order to change health habits it takes building up trust in a community in that they know you’re going to work with them over a long period of time, Hinchey said.
He said the prize money will be handed to Sisters Margaret Beatty and Pat Baber for re-investment into St. Mary’s Community Center in Cuyler-Brownville.
“We’re just giving it to the community.”
They listened
Whitfield’s face becomes a sea of smiles when she discusses her relationship with Baber and the group she directs.
“She embraced me with a hug,” Whitfield, 53, recalled of her initial contact with Baber. “She offered me water, coffee and even a snack.”
And Baber aide Cindy Cook, life coach, asked, simply, “How can I help you?”
Whitfield left her native Chicago for Savannah and almost immediately needed help.
Surgery in February and in March to resolve complications left the diabetic seeking disability and a way to, among other things, fight extra pounds and inches that were undermining her health.
“I had no money with my name on it and I have no family,” she said.
St. Mary’s staff got her to their eye clinic and a new pair of glasses. A new stress class helped her to catch her breath. A private physician within the St. Joseph’s/Candler system is monitoring her diabetes care. Education programs help her manage her weight and blood pressure levels.
And an exercise regimen has helped her drop “at least 20 pounds and a lot of inches, too,” she said.
And under Chef Thaddeus a healthy cooking class is teaching her skills in the kitchen she can carry into her own home.
“This is a faith-based program,” Whitfield said, recalling staff instructions that, “We’re going to teach you how to love yourself.”
“I almost died twice in the operating table,” she said. “I got a second chance at life. They’re my family.”
For Baber, a Catholic sister who has been director of the center since she opened it with Sister Donna Marie Cowart in April 2000, the center is the realization of her and the hospital system’s vision that such issues as housing, literacy levels and transportation all contribute to a positive health outcome.
“Somehow we knew that prevention had to be more than telling people to eat right and exercise,” Baber said.
She, like Hinchey, credited partners working with the system as the key element to the center’s success.
Look at entire person
Across town at the St. Joseph’s/Candler African-American Health Information & Resource Center, Mattie Robinson has found similar positive results.
The 64-year-old Savannah native has gone there for about six years, attending seminars, a “Living Smart Fitness Club,” healthy cooking classes and various health screenings.
“This has kept me healthy,” Robinson said. “I can take what I learn and take it back to my church and others.”
First among those others is her mother, Earline Logan, who at age 94 suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and for whom Robinson is caregiver.
“I cook for myself and my mother,” Robinson said.
An added benefit from the center is that it allows Robinson an occasional respite from her mother’s care and a chance to meet and talk with other adults “about a lot of different things.”
Again the philosophy here is that “health is not just the absence of disease,” said Ella Williamson, director of the facility in the old Don Auld Pharmacy building since it opened in November 1999.
“You have to look at the entire person.”
She sees the center as a connection between the clients is serves and the programs to help them, calling it “like the gateway.”
“Well care has to be a part of sick care,” she said. “It cuts down on visits to the emergency room.”