Cathy and Ken Haarstad, Minot

We as a family are grateful. Very grateful. Our adult daughter with disabilities was hospitalized last summer after she fell ill with diabetes, pneumonia and staph infection. She spent weeks on a ventilator and required lung and other surgeries, an infection control specialist and respiratory, speech, physical therapy, skilled nursing and medical care at Trinity Hospital. She spent another two months at Trinity Nursing Home. Today her lungs are clear. Her blood sugar is well-controlled, and she no longer has a tracheostomy and feeding tube. She has her voice back, is mobile and able to eat soft foods. Life is sweet.

During this time, we became aware of many things. We were aware before her hospitalization that many people speak of Trinity with disdain and are eager to criticize and point out faults and failings. While we did not share this attitude, we are ashamed that we did nothing to nay-say it either as people said “you know what Trinity is like.”

These dedicated health professionals are all aware of how they are perceived by many in Minot. Yet every day, they go into work and perform phenomenal services in spite of what sometimes amounts to a critical lack of support within the community. We for one, believe that they shouldn’t have to and hope that our community will give them a break. We are extremely fortunate to have medical services of the caliber that Trinity Hospital and Nursing Home provided. Moving to another city far away for care would have been very difficult.

Some of the exemplary services we observed were the cardio-thoracic surgeon who performed life-saving lung surgery and the infectious disease control specialist who tried 3 antibiotics before he found the one that was successful. The dedicated nursing staff provided highly technical and yet personalized care and included us as part of the medical team.

We learned how the shortage of nurses, housekeeping and medical specialists such as ENTs made everyone’s job more difficult. The medical team met each day to overcome these and other challenges. When we brought up a concern about some aspect of our daughter’s physical or mental health the team had already observed the same issue, were on top of it, and had a plan.

Our daughter had the best respiratory and monitoring equipment and therapies. Trinity has professionals from all over the country and indeed the world who complete rotations in order to address the shortages of medical personnel and making that work successfully, takes phenomenal care coordination.

Because our daughter could not speak, the staff had many questions about who she was as a person and how she functioned in her everyday life. Never once did anyone suggest that because she has Down syndrome, she was less worth saving or that her needs were too costly or her care should be stopped because of a lack of resources. We feel sure that neither the hospital nor nursing home was adequately reimbursed by insurance for the cost of her care. We are grateful to the many people who give to the Trinity foundation. We have joined their ranks.

Did mistakes occur during her care? Occasionally. Is that surprising? We don’t think so. Whenever humans come together to accomplish anything, mistakes are going to occur. We are after all, well, human and learning from our mistakes is necessary to grow. Trinity sets a wonderful example of that. We are certainly not perfect either.

We are also grateful for the many visits and prayers our daughter received from people in our community as she recuperated. Please join us in thanking and speaking up in favor of Trinity next time you share a meal with family and friends. We are incredibly fortunate to have their services. Thank you!