Hospitals adjust holiday donation policies due to COVID-19
“People often want to hand-deliver gifts to (the) hospital, like toys for the pediatric patients, meals for staff and homemade masks — all of which are lovely, but require a lot of hands.”
Steve Jakab, president of the Bridgeport Hospital Foundation
In times of crisis, people want to help. That’s something Steve Jakab, president of the Bridgeport Hospital Foundation, has been often reminded of during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As doctors, nurses and other caregivers toiled to care for patients, both COVID-19 and otherwise, people have wanted to reach out and show support and care. There was just one problem.
“People often want to handdeliver gifts to (the) hospital, like toys for the pediatric patients, meals for staff and homemade masks — all of which are lovely, but require a lot of hands,” Jakab said. “It’s become increasingly risky to accept these physical items from the community.”
As the pandemic headed into a second wave, the hospital was faced with another problem — the holidays, a time when people typically want to give to causes they care about. Though hospitals said generosity is both needed and appreciated, some have had to change the way they accept and provide help this holiday season.
Bridgeport Hospital, for example, recently issued changes to its toy donation policy and is no longer accepting in-person donations of physical items to its Dr. Tom Kennedy Toy Closet. Donors can directly mail items from the toy closet’s holiday wish list to the hospital, or they can make monetary donations to the hospital through the Bridgeport Hospital Foundation website.
The hospital is also transforming its annual holiday toy run to support the toy closet into a virtual event.
Even though hospitals, like everyone else, exist in a new normal, Jakab said they’re working on ways for people to offer help if they want.
“We want to maintain strong relationships with the community,” he said. “We think we’ve figured out some safe and easy ways to do that.”
Other hospitals in the region are also adjusting their holiday activities due to the pandemic. At St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport, the hospital is changing several events because of the pandemic, including its TRIM for the SWIM, in which specially decorated trees are placed in the hospital lobby and raffled off to raise money for St. Vincent’s Swim Across the Sound.
The hospital is looking for ways to make the event virtual this year, said Dianne Auger, president and chief executive officer of the St. Vincent’s Medical Center Foundation.
She said St. Vincent’s is also changing its annual Survivorship Breakfast that celebrates cancer survivors. Usually, Auger said, attendees get a watch and hear stories from survivors. This year, the watches will be mailed and survivors have the option of submitting stories to be shared.
“We had to figure out a creative way to get a personalized message out to these patients,” Auger said.
One event that St. Vincent’s hasn’t yet figured out how to alter for the new COVID-19 normal is its annual Medical Mission, which provided free medical care for members of the community. Typically, Auger said, they could have 1,000 people show up to an event.
“We couldn’t do that this year,” she said.
But the medical center hasn’t canceled the mission and is looking for some way to provide aspects of the event to assist the community, she said.
Both St. Vincent’s and Bridgeport Hospital are still finding ways to distribute food to community members who need it, and are generally trying to stay connected to their communities while trying to keep everyone safe.
“First and foremost, we’ve been overwhelmed by the support we’ve gotten from the community over the past year,” Jakab said. “It’s been such an important message of support.”