I've always been a big supporter of Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, believing that it's one of the best there is. I've seen a lot of emergency cases go into that hospital from auto accidents, shootings, stabbings and other tragedies, with the victim being well cared for, healed and released.
When I was a police reporter in the 1970s in Columbus, Grant Hospital (now Grant Medical Center) had the reputation of being where victims of shooting and stabbings were taken, along with prisoners from the old city jail and the county jail. Police officers were usually taken to Grant because of its downtown location relatively near police headquarters.
I dealt a lot with the night nursing supervisor, learning the condition of various incident victims. As I remember she was always cooperative and usually friendly, but this past weekend I learned what friendly and compassionate really meant.
My 95-year-old mother-in-law was taken Friday evening by ambulance from her home in Delaware, Ohio, to Grady Memorial Hospital where they discovered a very slow heart-beat issue that was life-threatening.
She was taken Saturday to Grant where she underwent emergency surgery Sunday morning to have a pacemaker installed. Her heart beat immediately went from the high 30s to the 80s as soon as the leads were connected. Almost instantly her entire appearance and demeanor bounced back to that of the spry woman I have known for 40 years.
The point, though, is everyone on the sixth-floor cardiac floor, from the people who brought her room-service-ordered meals, to the technicians who took her blood and checked her vital signs, to the nurses (one of whom was Mark from Davisville), to the doctors, operating room personnel and surgeons, were warm, caring, helpful, fantastic people.
For my mother-in-law, as amazing as it seems, it was the first time she had ever had surgery and thus didn't know what to expect. For the rest of the family, the manner in which she was treated was beyond superb. She was treated like we all would want to be treated ... like a favorite grandmother.
I now have a second Columbus hospital for which I have high admiration.
