|
Facility could close because of economic situation
By Megan Anderson
HOMETOWN NEWS
Imagine finding an answer to a desperate prayer, only to have the solution suddenly snatched away.
It’s a situation a Blacksburg family could be facing in the next month. The family of Logan Hopper, a rising seventh-grader at Blacksburg Middle School, was crushed to learn that the Greenville Shriners Hospital for Children might close its doors.
Hopper has been a regular patient at the hospital since she was two-years-old. After coming into this world weighing less than two pounds, she struggled with health problems until she was finally diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy when she was four months old. Hopper has a form of the disorder called Spastic Cerebral Palsy that caused the muscles in her legs and feet to be rigid and jerky.
Her prognosis has improved since she began working with the dedicated doctors and nurses at the Shriners facility, however. Two surgeries – one to insert arches in her feet and another to stretch her heel cords – have given her the ability to walk with the help of a walker or crutches.
The 11-year-old has to return to the hospital for follow-up appointments every six months, but she somewhat enjoys the visits with her doctors.
“They are really nice and they take good care of me,” she said.
While Hopper’s regular check-ups can sometimes be painful, and involve some poking and prodding, the family, which includes Hopper’s mother, Tammy Caveny, and grandmother, Pat Caveny, can’t put a price on what the Shriners Hospital is able to do.
“With them, they take real good care of you,” said Pat. “They just think of everything.”
The hospital doesn’t charge for any of its services but is still able to provide pediatric specialty care for children suffering from orthopaedic conditions, burns, spinal cord injuries, and cleft lips and palates.
That specialty care her granddaughter needs can be hard to find, according to Pat, so to find a place that also takes extra efforts to make sure the patients and their families feel taken care of is just a miracle.
Kids are entertained by a lounge filled with video games and fun themed-rooms, while parents take comfort in amenities like free showers, washers and dryers.
But with operating costs climbing and charitable donations declining, the Shriners Hospitals organization, which is based out of Tampa, FL, is faced with the very-real possibility of closing six of its 22 hospitals across North America.
Sadly Greenville is among those facing closure, much to the horror of area patients who have come to depend on the charitable health care system. Hospitals in Shreveport, LA., Erie, Penn., Spokane, Wash., and Springfield, Mass., are also being considered, as is one in Galveston, Texas that has been temporarily closed since Hurricane Ike came through the area.
Until a vote is taken at the Shriners annual meeting next month, patients like Hopper are left to anxiously wait on the outcome. Rather that sit by idly, however, she and her family are committed to doing what they can to lend a hand to an organization that has become very important to them.
To gather support for the children’s hospital, they are asking others to help out however they can. Donations of any size are very much needed, but for those who are unable to give money, letters of support are also helpful.
“Every little bit helps,” Pat pleaded. “These are difficult economic times for everyone but if you could just give even like $5 or $10 – any amount would help serve a child. You’d like to think you don’t need a place like this with your children, but if you ever do, isn’t it nice to know they’re going to be there?”
Assistance of any kind can be sent to the group’s headquarters in Tampa at Shriners International Headquarters, 2900 Rocky Point Drive, Tampa, FL., 33607. More information is available by calling the office at (813) 218-0300.
 Email This Post
|
