Since she was in high school, Miriam Levi has been drawn to working with older adults. She brings years of training and experience in improving nursing home culture as a Green House guide to her current position.
When visitation reopened at The New Jewish Home’s Sarah Neuman facility in Westchester on March 31, the hallways were full of emotion. Lorraine Thomas, a recreation therapist, said her eyes hurt from all the tears of joy she cried with families who were able to visit their loved ones in person after many months apart.
In normal times, nursing home residents enjoy a wide range of social activities and companionship, in addition to visits from friends and family. But this pandemic year has been far from normal, with restricted visitation and limited group activities. A pilot program offered in conjunction with DOROT enabled some residents at The New Jewish Home’s Sarah Neuman campus in Westchester to take part in a series of friendly phone calls — while getting some much-needed relief from the isolation of the pandemic to boot.
A new collaboration between The New Jewish Home and White Plains Hospital is providing hope and help for patients recovering from ostomy surgery.
When patients wake up from ostomy surgery, they are dealing with all the usual post-surgery issues — weakness, pain, and disorientation — plus “the reality that they are confronting a total change to their lifestyle, both physical and psychological,” according to Tina Nardi, ET Ostomy Specialist. She should know: As one of the pioneers in ostomy care, she has been counseling patients for more than 40 years. She was recently brought in to train the nursing staff at The New Jewish Home’s Sarah Neuman campus under a new partnership with White Plains Hospital designed to provide seamless care from surgery to rehab to discharge home.
