Community Cornerstone Annual Campaign
Make your online donation here
or
Designate your Community Cornerstone Annual Campaign donation with this printable form (.pdf)
or
Call now to make a donation:
(505) 724-6576
Caring. Compassion. Community.
After 100 years of delivering healthcare to our community, you can't tell where Presbyterian stops and the community begins. And that's the way we like it.
From our humble beginnings in a few cottages on Central Avenue as a TB sanatorium to the state's only private, not-for-profit healthcare system, we have been delivering non-stop care, expertise, comfort and compassion around the clock for over 100 years. And hand in hand with meeting the ever more demanding healthcare needs of our community, you go. For it is our generous donors, who make so much of what we do at the Foundation, possible. And it is our donors who we want to thank. You have touched other people's lives because of your generosity and understand that if we don't serve our brothers, then who do we serve?
Through your philanthropy we have done so much good and look forward to our next one hundred years of making a positive difference in our community with you at our side.
People Whose Lives Were Touched By You...
Mark, Matthew and Maggie: How family-centered care came to Presbyterian
"We were eating dinner. One minute everything was fine and the next, Mark was choking on a piece of food that had lodged in his throat and he went into cardiac arrest," Maggie, his wife, said. By the time the ambulance arrived at Presbyterian, her husband, Mark, was unresponsive, lifeless. He remained in a coma on life-support for one week. Realizing Mark would not recover, Maggie turned to his nurse and asked, "What do I do for our son?"
Some months earlier, Rebecca Armstrong, director of Child Life, had returned from a 'Family-Centered Care' Internship at the University of London College Hospital. She had been impressed with the medical results and emotional outcomes she observed when adult patients and their child(ren) were integrated into the complete hospital experience.
Spurred on by the knowledge gained in London and memories of past requests from nurses on adult units for consults, she was waiting for an opportunity to 'partner' an adult area of care with Child Life. It came with the call on behalf of the Donaldson family.
A collaboration between Cardiac Critical Care and Child Life resulted in therapeutic support for Maggie, her 12-year-old son Matthew and other family members. Dr. Craig Jensen, the hospitalist in charge of Mark's care, Armstrong and the staff worked to blunt the force of what was happening.
Armstrong took photos of Mark on life-support and she and Dr. Jensen reviewed them with Matt so he could become familiar with the medical equipment that dominated his dad's hospital room. They spent time in Christopher's Corner, a colorful nook filled with medical and educational materials, a computer, printer, and toys; a haven to look for answers, find explanations and learn to cope with the stress of hospitalization. Armstrong suggested they bring some of Mark's things from home to make the circumstances seem somewhat 'normal.' "It was like he was more with us," Maggie said. "It warmed up the room for Matt."
Dr. Jensen invested his time 'on and off duty' in building rapport with the family, working with them to 'humanize' the daily trials of the situation. He brought in movies for Matt to watch with his dad, understanding it was something they could share, and frequently spent time playing air hockey with Matt. He said, "I wanted him to understand that the relationship of caring for his father was not, 'I am the doctor and Mark is my patient,' but 'I am concerned about and caring for your father, and I am concerned about and will care for you and your mother as well.'"
Matt painted his own hand, his dad's and mom's and put the impressions in a Memory Book. "It's one of our most treasured memories," Maggie said.
After Mark passed away, his sister and brother-in-law donated dozens of plants to Rachel's Courtyard, an outdoor play space for hospitalized children, to plant a garden for other families in crisis.
"Dr. Jensen, the nurses, the donor team ..well, everyone was incredible," Maggie said. "Everything came together for us and I don't know what we would have done anywhere else," she added.
Recognizing the implications of this experience, Jensen and Armstrong agreed that every family deserves this kind of therapeutic support. Today Child Life services are implemented in the adult areas as a matter of course. "Every child experiencing the anxiety of the hospital situation revolving around a parent or family member deserves the appropriate attention from compassionate, knowledgeable professionals to cope, accept and function during and after this critical time in a life," Armstrong said. "Today they have it."
Fanny Maestas
She was born Frances Ramona Seville in the early 1900s and was raised near Cuba, New Mexico, on a rambling spread given to her grandfather for service in the Civil War. Fanny was a little short of breath growing up, but that didn't stop her from riding horses and helping with chores.
The family moved to Albuquerque when she was about 15 and she grew into a spirited young woman, who captured the heart of Juan Maestas, a local rancher and oilman. They were married in 1935 and raised a family of eight.
Fanny retired from teaching in 1963 and she and Juan started traveling abroad. After Juan passed away, Fanny moved in with her daughter Viola Garcia because of her failing health. While almost 93 years old, Fanny still looks the grandee's daughter smartly dressed and going to the spa once a month. As she said, "It's very important to keep things up."
Now that Fanny stays mostly at home, her children take turns visiting. And so does Presbyterian Home Healthcare and Hospice. "They even come on weekends and their days off and never seem rushed or annoyed," Vi said.
"There aren't enough words to express how wonderful, gracious, courteous, loving, caring and attentive they are," Fannie added. Then her eyes lit up and she said, "Overall, they are perfect."
Dawn Davide Luttrell
In August 2007, La Bella Spa Salon owner Dawn Davide Luttrell, children Alexis and Jack, and husband, Officer Chris Luttrell, welcomed into their lives twin boys. The babies were a gift born on her 40th birthday. Four weeks premature and weighing 4 pounds 7 ounces, the boys were about to embark on very different routes.
While underweight, Vincent Roman was otherwise healthy and spent three weeks in an incubator and then went home. His brother didn't.
James Reagan had respiratory distress syndrome, a complication related to prematurity. His lung disorder deteriorated due to an air leak within the lungs and he was placed on a special high frequency ventilator. Several days of intense monitoring followed before recovery began. It was six weeks until he joined his twin at home.
"The care James Reagan received in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit was extraordinary," Dawn said. The nurses and doctors were attentive day and night and Neonatologist Dr. Sydney Swetnam was an angel. "She didn't know me from a hole in the wall," Dawn said, "but she stayed with James for three days like he was her family member."
"These people are doing the most important job in the world," Dawn said. "They are saving babies' lives."
In 2007 Presbyterian Healthcare Foundation allocated over $98,000 to the Children's Medical Center at Presbyterian.
Your dollars form the Cornerstone on which Presbyterian Healthcare Services continuously raises the bar in healthcare quality and services it delivers.
Make your online donation here
or
Designate your Community Cornerstone Annual Campaign donation with this printable form (.pdf)
or
Call now to make a donation:
(505) 724-6580
The integration of your philanthropy and the hospital's steadfast march to improve the quality of healthcare and services delivered results in our surpassing the expectations of our community. We look forward to another moving and significant year thanks to the generosity of people like you.
