From The Editor: Greetings From the Hospital

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To Our Readers,
OK, it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve worked from a hospital bed but it is the first time I ever put a paper out on production day from a hospital bed. I keep stressing we care and I hope this proves it.
As the medical and all the support staff work their magic at Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank to get me healthy again, they have also assisted me to get the paper out. That’s well beyond their mission. Thanks to them in a big way. It’s a wonderful place that works as a team in a positive environment with competency everywhere; a wonderful metaphor for a true community.
Riverview is like a city of its own. It takes so many hands to make the medical experience a plus for patients. Knowledgeable and positive nurses, doctors and technicians are patient, explaining why they are proceeding at every point. They are the very backbone of this fine institution.
From the second you walk into the ER, through the terrifying first moments to the process of placing you in a room, you feel, well, safe. That really helps but so do all the people who make all those very complicated machines work. The maintenance staff keeps it clean and is respectful of their environment when going about their work in an unobtrusive way. The food staff puts together a pretty terrific menu with some wicked good shakes and the Concierge Care staff offers more services than most salons or actual concierges at major hotels. You need or want it; they do their best to get it. And Guest Services rock. They provide pets to help you heal and they even assist you with technical problems when you’re trying to put out a newspaper from 5 South! They went as far as bringing in an alternate electronic device to help. I could go on and on about Respiratory staff, security, OR staff, and the list just keeps growing.
Don’t even get me started about how positively I feel about my team on 5 South. They are the epitome of what a team knows – their priority is making me well and comfortable and emotionally happy and they will do whatever it takes to make that happen. Thank you.
Now, that’s community at work. That’s what Riverview – and The Two River Times of course – are all about.
Tim Hogan, regional hospital president and president of Riverview, gets it. He is also involved with The Two River Times in its public service project to make the Two River area a safer place. He sets the tone and so do his senior staff of professionals. They care. They care about introducing you to maternity nurses who have delivered three generations of babies. They care about their beautiful new outpatient surgery center. They care about becoming the best oncology center in the region. I’ve toured this hospital as an editor and I’ve been a patient here many times. It’s always an experience I walk away from feeling that my local hospital is a place that will care for me, and well. So, there is already one Two River Times staffer, Dawn Stout, on an elevator door at the hospital. I don’t want to be one, though. I just wanted to give a shout out to the good people who are doing everything they can to get me back into my office!
Tell us about your experience here. We’re listening.
Let’s have coffee!
Jody Calendar
jcalendar@tworivertimes.com
732-219-5788