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Texas hospital unveils senior-oriented ER

“Of course, everybody of all ages get hurt, but the ones who get sick often tend to be the elderly,” nurse Wesley Milum said

By Mark Reagan
The Monitor

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — On Thursday morning, two Brownsville Fire Department paramedics wheeled an elderly woman on a stretcher from outside of Valley Baptist Medical Center-Brownsville into the hospital’s first floor emergency room.

As the patient came in through the front doors, two paramedics moved her past a large central-command-center-like desk and into a room past a nurse’s station in a small corridor.

Instead of being wheeled on a stretcher to a large room with white laminate floors where beds are separated from each other with large blue privacy sheets for patients, the room where the paramedics took the woman was specifically designed to better take care of Brownsville’s older patients.

“This, specifically, is catering to one of our highest demographics, which is the geriatric population. Of course, everybody of all ages get hurt, but the ones who get sick often tend to be the elderly, and that’s just kind of the natural progression of the life cycle,” said Wesley Milum, a registered nurse who is administratively in charge of nurses in the ER. “And so we want to be extra prepared to take care of some of our most vulnerable population, so that’s kind of the compassionate side behind all of this project, in order to be able to better care for those people.”

The geriatric emergency department, which opened in May, is designed with the community’s senior population in mind and meets mobility challenges faced by older patients while bringing the staff and services needed to assess, treat and release these patients closer together to streamline medical help.

Copyright 2018 The Monitor

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