San San Nu, a member of the Environmental Services team at Utah Valley Hospital, normally focuses on cleaning and sanitizing patient rooms. But current visitor restrictions have also given her a chance to provide needed encouragement and connection to the patients in those rooms.
Kyle Walters was one of those patients. He spent four days at the hospital after being shocked multiple times by his internal defibrillator. Kyle had been hospitalized before with heart issues, but he’d never faced those events alone. Even his daughter and son-in-law who work at the hospital couldn’t see him.
“I'm a nurse at the American Fork InstaCare and my husband is a respiratory therapist in the NICU, but with restrictions, we weren't even able pop in while on shift,” says Deelisa Panton, RN. “The only way we were able to communicate with him was by phone and Facetime, and it was hard to see him depressed and not be able to be there to support him and help him.
Kyle described it as “the second deepest low of depression and despair that I’d ever been in.” Phone calls from his family and visits from the doctors or nurses didn’t seem to help. That’s where San San came to the rescue.
San San Nu with Kyle Walters
“San San was a great help to my dad in the hospital,” Deelisa says. “She was able to brighten his day every time that she came in, even after he’d heard bad news from the doctors. She was able to remind him to have hope.”
It makes me happy to serve people in a very small way," San San says. "That I can do something good every day is a big privilege for me.”
Kyle says, “She lifted me. She gave me courage. I sat and pondered her for a while and realized what a blessing she was to me.”
“It was a great blessing to our family to have somebody there reaching out to him and showing compassion, concern, and kindness when we couldn’t,” says Deelisa. “She’s a great example of how every single employee, no matter what their role is, can reach out to a patient or to other staff and help improve lives.”