Local nurse on a mission to help ER patients
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A local nurse is on a mission to provide for patients who are ready to leave the hospital. She does this through a special closet she maintains and stocks herself.
Julie Booth works is a nurse who works in the Emergency Department at Riley Hospital for Children.
She said on the night shift, she typically sees anywhere from 50 to 70 patients.
“We see everything here; from the very simple ear infections to a fever all the way to gunshot wounds, bad accidents, children not restrained well and flying out of cars. Just a little bit of everything,” Booth said.
Booth said she realized there was a problem when the patients were discharged and had nothing to wear home.
“I saw the nurses really struggling when we’re busy and they’re spending 20 minutes trying to find clothing for a child to wear home,” she added. “It’s stressful.”
The closet was started about three years ago and is tucked away in the ER hallway.
Many times, Booth would spend her own money to buy gently used clothes to stock the closet. Those clothes would have to be taken to the hospital and go through a special washing procedure before they were able to be given out.
Recently, she was awarded a $5,000 grant to help with the closet.
“Now I don’t have to use used clothes, I get to get new clothes to give to our families and it’s just so fun to be able to do that. I love to shop so that’s not a problem,” she said.
She received the grant from Women for Riley, which is a philanthropic group associated with the hospital.
“Julie was kind of that effervescent person who came in and told us what she was doing. And she had already done this. It wasn’t like she came in with an idea, she had been doing this on her own, she had been spending her own money to go out, shopping thrift stores to buy these clothes, she’s sold hotdogs at yard sales,” said Lee Neff with Women for Riley.
Sizes in the closet range from newborn to 3X to cover a variety of patients.
“If a parent has come in and been vomited all over or has had a significantly injured child and they’re covered all over the child’s blood, what are they going to wear? They can’t sit in the hospital like that. So we started looking at these needs,” said Booth.
“It wasn’t like she came in with an idea, she had been doing this on her own, she had been spending her own money,” Neff added.
Hospital officials at Riley said that they are now in the midst of trauma season, where they see and increase in patients to the emergency room. In 2017, the hospital saw 46,944 during trauma season.