While Doctors Heal Bodies, Health First Hospital Volunteers Warm Hearts
By Space Coast Daily // November 5, 2019
Auxiliaries are Critical Part of Delivering Patients High-Quality, Compassionate Care
BREVARD COUNTY • MELBOURNE, FLORIDA – A couple of years ago, Allan decided there was no reason the emergency room couldn’t have a Santa Claus.
An active volunteer and Auxiliary President for Health First’s Holmes Regional Medical Center himself, Allan donned the red-and-white suit and started making rounds.
“This particular year, I walked past room 63, and there was a mother there with a little boy,” the former schoolteacher from New York explained, pausing and apologizing for having to catch his composure.
She said, “Can you come in and talk to him?”
Allan did just that. On the way out of the room, the boy’s mother thanked him.
She said, “You made his day,” to a teary-eyed Allan
And Allan said, “No – it’s the other way around.”
Each Health First hospital hosts an auxiliary, with volunteers playing an important role in creating a compassionate, high-quality environment for patients.
The auxiliaries have contributed millions of hours of valuable service, in addition to helping raise money to finance hospital building projects, funding scholarships for students in the healthcare field, purchasing new equipment and sponsoring community healthcare-related programs.
For Allan, it’s the best-paying job he’s ever had.
“It taught me a lot about life,” he confessed. “The best salary you can have in life is inside your chest – your heart.”
