Good news for SVH Skilled Nursing Facility

The Sonoma Valley Hospital’s Skilled Nursing Facility has just received two pieces of good news. First, the Sonoma Valley Hospital Foundation announced on Monday, February 1,  that it will provide SNF with 17 much-needed new beds. “This is huge,” said SNF director Melissa Evans. “We had 10 new beds last year, but the rest of our beds are very old, rebuilt, 1965-era beds.” Of the facility’s 27 beds, the old beds, she explained, have out-dated controls that are stiff and difficult to adjust and manipulate for both patients and care-givers alike.

“We’re very grateful,” Evans said. “We really thank the Foundation, and we really thank Carl, because he went to the Foundation, in the middle of our financial crisis, and asked them, and they agreed. So I’m grateful to both of them.”

Gerlach expressed his appreciation to the Foundation, its director, Carolyn J. Stone, and the people of SNF. “Our SNF is a unique and valuable service provider for this community,” he said. “It plays a critical role in our hospital’s being able to provide a continuum of care under the management of a single organization. You will not find that in other communities. We are fortunate.” Carolyn J. Stone explained the donation saying, "This is just one more way for the Foundation to help the hospital this year, when our support, and that of the community, is needed more than ever."

The second piece of good news for SNF is that, thanks to private donations, the facility will soon begin upgrading patient rooms. One by one, as donations make it possible, they will outfit rooms with all new window coverings, new flooring, two flat-screen TVs in each room, a chair-rail around the walls and possibly new lighting and new bed curtains around the beds. With the guidance of Suzanne Brangham, who offered her help so effectively with the SVH Birthplace renovation, the SNF rooms will be repainted in warm and appealing colors. They are aiming to finish the first room by February 14. “It will be beautiful,” said Evans, “we’re so excited.”

So far, she said, they have received donations to complete two or three new rooms, at a cost of approximately $10,000 per room. Soon, they will be sending out a “wish list” so that people can make donations according to their own budget. Not everyone needs to donate funds for a whole room. “People may want to donate enough for a television, or enough for a chair,” said Evans. For those who donate funds to upgrade a whole room, SNF will create a plaque that will hang in the room, so that the will be dedicated to that donor. “In the middle of our financial cutbacks,” said Evans, “this is a bright spot.”

February 5, 2010