DANVILLE — A DAISY Award was recently presented to a Hendricks Regional Health nurse, as it is every quarter.
The winner for this quarter was Edna Wilson, who was chosen for her compassionate care of cancer patients. But this quarter’s award ceremony was special, as the founders of the DAISY Foundation were on hand for the presentation.
The DAISY Foundation was established by the family members of Patrick Barnes, who died of complications from Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura in 1999. The care that Barnes received led his family to begin the foundation to award nurses for their efforts.
”It’s a special honor to be here and celebrate all of you,” said Bonnie Barnes, Patrick’s step mother. “It has now been almost 13 years since my stepson, Mark’s son, died of complications from the auto-immune disease ITP ... We were very lucky that we got to be with Patrick, his wife Tena, and baby Riley during the time of his hospitalization because who knew that when they called and said he was sick, that it was going to have such a tragic outcome?”
Patrick spent eight weeks in the hospital before dying in November of 1999.
”As you all know, you’ve all been around families just like us, where you go through so much emotion, in the hospital non-stop with the highs and lows of everything going on,” Bonnie said. “Things got worse and worse, but through it all we always had hope -- until we didn’t.”
Bonnie said that through all of this emotion, they felt the need to put it toward something, which became the foundation.
”The nurses that took care of him in two different hospitals and the ambulance plane in between were, in our opinion, extraordinary,” Bonnie said. “It wasn’t the clinical part of what they did, because quite frankly we expected that he’d get great clinical care. They were completely capable of dealing with what became a very difficult medical condition ...What we didn’t expect, and frankly what we were blown away by, was how that clinical skill was delivered -- with compassion, kindness, and a sensitivity, not only to Pat, but to each of us in the family at a time that we really needed it.”
The presentation included every nurse that had been nominated for the DAISY Award in the past year. Bonnie said that it was the human element of what nurses do that prompted the DAISY Award.
The DAISY Award is recognized at 1,301 health care facilities. There are more than 35,000 nurses who have received the award, out of 140,000 nurses who have been nominated. In addition, the Barnes family tours the country to thank the nurses.
Mark Barnes, Patrick’s father, said, “I want to thank all of you for being nurses. That’s one of our missions is to go around and say thank you to as many nurses as we can for what you do every single day. I cannot tell you how much personal respect and admiration I have for you and your profession. I didn’t realize what you were when we started this foundation, but I have to tell you that every single day, I am more and more impressed with who you are and what you do.”
For more information about the DAISY Awards, visit the website at daisyfoundation.org.
ryan.palencer@flyergroup.com
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