Have a Question or Comment?Click Here to Send a Message | Need more information about our services? Call 850-416-7000 or Toll Free 1-800-874-1026
Friday, June 29, 2007
Sacred Heart Offers Free Screenings to Needy, Elderly, and Uninsured
Sacred Heart Health System will provide free health screenings in July at sites in Escambia County and Santa Rosa County. The screening program targets persons who are poor, uninsured, or elderly.
Sacred Heart staff will provide screenings to measure blood pressure, blood sugar, total cholesterol and blood count. These screenings are helpful in diagnosing conditions that put people at high risk for heart attack, stroke, anemia diabetes, and other health problems.
The schedule is as follows:
• July 5 from 9 to 11:30 a.m. at St. Jude Catholic Church, 303 Rocky Ave., Cantonment.
• July 10 from 9 to 11:30 a.m. at Alternative Health Food Store, 5533 Hwy. 90 in Pace.
• July 11 from 9 to 11:30 a.m. at Westwood Homes, 4400 Westover St., Pensacola.
• July 12 from 9 to 11:30 a.m. at First West Florida Convention, 2400 W. Strong St., Pensacola.
• July 17 from 9 to 11:30 a.m. at Billory Baptist Church, 8162 Stillwater Cove, Highway 87, Holley Navarre.
• July 18 from 9 to 11:30 a.m. at Wesley Scott Place, 3300 W. Scott St., Pensacola.
• July 19 from 9 to 11:30 a.m. at Cantonment Council on Aging, 132 Mintz Lane, Cantonment.
• July 25 from 9 to 11:30 a.m. at Felix Miga Center, 904 N. 57th Ave., Pensacola.
• July 27 from 9 a.m. until noon at Holy Trinity Anglican Church, 609 N. Alcaniz St., Pensacola.
Mission in Motion is a community service provided by Sacred Heart Health System in Pensacola. The mobile unit’s free services also are made possible by support from the law firm of Kerrigan, Estess, Rankin and McLeod, as well as the Gannett Foundation and other community donors. For more information, call (850) 416-7826.
Hip Replacement Surgery Can Give Patients a New Lease on Life
Annoying pain in his left hip and the inability to sleep led Randy Williams to the decision to have hip replacement surgery at Sacred Heart Hospital's Joint Replacement Center. "I had a lot of pain in my lower back and left hip," says Williams. "I even had three epidurals, but the epidurals only lasted a few days and then the pain came back and got progressively worse. It ruined my sleep and my golf game!"
Williams, the director of development at the Institute for Human & Machine Cognition in downtown Pensacola, put up with his arthritis-related pain for nearly eight months. Today, he wishes he had had hip replacement surgery when the pain first began. On May 1, Dr. Robert Snowden, orthopedic surgeon at Sacred Heart, replaced Williams' deteriorating hip with a brand new one made of high-grade ceramic, titanium and polyethelene.
After surgery, Williams spent four days in Sacred Heart's Joint Replacement Center, where a dedicated team of nurses and therapists focused on getting him moving again. "I love to play golf," says Williams. "I play about twice a week. And we enjoy traveling."
Hip replacement surgery gave Williams a new lease on a pain-free life. "I'm 77," says Williams. "Dr. Snowden told me I wouldn't need it replaced for another 40 years. I told him to put the appointment on his calendar!"
Dr. Snowden has been performing joint replacement surgery for the past 30 years. "New technology has improved the artificial parts used in joint replacement surgery," says Dr. Snowden. "Current generation ceramics and even titanium provide more durable, longer-lasting components. Computers are being used to guide accurate placement of implants, which can potentially make smaller incision surgery truly less invasive."
Oh, those aching joints! Many people do exactly what Williams did – they suffer with pain until they finally have the surgery and then wish they had made the decision much earlier. Today, even younger people experiencing symptoms of joint pain are choosing to have the surgery done earlier so that they can maintain their busy routines without pain and enjoy their favorite activities. Moreover, joint replacement surgery can improve performance on the job and simply enable one to more easily get up out of a chair.
How do you know when it's time for joint surgery? Talk to your doctor if you are experiencing any of the following:
Inability to sleep at night because of the pain.
Use of different medications that don't help alleviate the pain or the medication you have been on no longer works.
The pain from your arthritis is keeping you from regular outings, or restricting you from getting out of a chair, climbing stairs, getting up off the floor, etc.
If you are considering joint replacement, discuss it with your personal physician and get a referral from him or her to speak with a surgeon who specializes in joint replacement. In the past 10 years, more than 5,000 joint replacement surgeries have been performed at Sacred Heart, where skilled orthopedic surgeons, nurses, specially trained technicians, physical therapists and others all provide a team approach for a quicker recovery. In fact, Sacred Heart performs more joint replacement surgeries than any other hospital in Northwest Florida.
For more information about joint replacement at Sacred Heart, please call (850) 416-1600 or visit www.sacred-heart.org.
Sacred Heart to Host Grant-Writing Workshop in August
Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola will host a Grantsmanship Training Program Aug. 27-31 for nonprofit and government grantseekers to learn proven grant-writing techniques. The hands-on workshop will take participants step by step through all stages of planning programs, researching funding sources and writing proposals.
The intensive course will be conducted by staff from the Grantsmanship Center, the world’s oldest and largest grantsmanship training organization for nonprofits.
To ensure personal attention, registration is limited to 30 participants. Tuition for this training program is $875 ($825 for each additional registration from the same organization). A limited number of partial scholarships are available for qualified agencies.
To register for the Grantsmanship Training Program, to get more information, or to apply for a partial scholarship, contact The Grantsmanship Center at (800) 421-9512 or www.tgci.com.
Find Strength in Sharing at Sacred Heart's Cancer Support Group Meeting on July 10
Cancer patients, cancer survivors, their families and friends are invited to the next meeting of Sacred Heart Hospital’s Cancer Support Group. The meeting will be held Tuesday, July 10, from 2 to 3 p.m. in the main hospital’s Oncology Unit Library on the second floor. Valet parking is available at the hospital’s main entrance on Ninth Avenue.
The focus of July’s meeting will be “Celebrating Survivorship!” The support group meets on the second Tuesday of each month at 2 p.m. in the same location. Upcoming topics to be addressed also include tips on handling the side effects of chemotherapy; Advance Directives; disability; and journaling.
The group is designed to offer support through education, information, spirituality, and the comfort of fellowship with other cancer patients. For more information, please contact Rene Moses, 416-7593, or Jo Jensen, 416-7928.
Sacred Heart To Build New Hospital in Port St. Joe
Sacred Heart Health System broke ground June 21 on a 25-bed community hospital and medical office building in Port St. Joe that will serve Gulf and Franklin counties.
Sacred Heart staff was joined by area political leaders and about 200 local residents at a groundbreaking ceremony on the 27-acre site off Highway 98. The groundbreaking was followed by a community reception at which Sacred Heart displayed renderings of the planned hospital building and campus design.
The site development and subsequent construction will take more than a year, with the hospital tentatively scheduled to open in January 2009. Sacred Heart estimates its cost for designing, building and equipping the hospital will be approximately $30 million.
“We are pleased to break ground on a hospital that will meet critical health care needs of residents in Port St. Joe and the surrounding communities of Gulf County and Franklin County,” said Patrick J. Madden, president and CEO of Sacred Heart Health System in Pensacola. “Gulf County has no hospital and we know the community is eager to have better access to emergency services, imaging services and surgical services.”
The project includes:
• A community hospital with 25 private rooms, an emergency department, and two operating rooms.
• An urgent care clinic to treat minor injuries and illnesses
• Laboratory services
• Diagnostic imaging services such as CT scans, x-ray, ultrasound and mammography
• A Medical Office Building to provide offices for 10 physicians
• A helipad to be used by Sacred Heart’s AirHeart helicopter, providing rapid transport for trauma patients and other critically ill patients to a Trauma Center.
In addition to new health care services, the hospital and medical office building will mean an economic boost for the area by providing jobs for an estimated 150 people.
For Sacred Heart Health System, the start of work on the hospital in Port St. Joe is a continuation of a regional expansion that includes the opening of a new hospital in Walton County in 2003. The hospital in Walton County also was supported by a land donation from The St. Joe Company.
Sacred Heart has expanded its air ambulance service into rural areas of Northwest Florida over the past six years. The AirHeart helicopter service provides emergency transport services from bases in Walton County and Marianna. Sacred Heart also opened a radiology clinic in Port St. Joe earlier this year and provides physician services in Panama City Beach.
For more information about making donations to the hospital and donor recognition opportunities, please contact Dr. Henry Roberts at the Sacred Heart Foundation, 850-416-4105.
Sacred Heart to Host Free Seminar on Hearing Loss and Hearing Aids
Sacred Heart Hospital’s Senior Service’s program will present a free seminar on hearing aids and hearing loss in Pensacola, Wednesday, June 27 from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. in the Greenhut Auditorium on Sacred Heart’s Ninth Avenue campus.
Presented by Dr. Carol Whitcomb-Powell, an audiologist with Hearing Associates of Pensacola, the seminar will discuss an overview of hearing loss, the realistic expectations of hearing aids, advances in hearing aid technology, and trends in the hearing aid industry. The talk will also help attendees learn their rights as consumers, as well as the costs and insurance issues associated with hearing aids.
According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), nearly 28 million Americans have a hearing impairment. Although we're more likely to experience problems with hearing as we get older, hearing loss affects all age groups, with approximately 17 in 1,000 children under age 18 suffering from some form of hearing loss.
Registration is required and seating is limited. To register, call (850) 416-1620 or 1-877-416-1620.
This seminar is part of the monthly series of free health education programs sponsored by Sacred Heart SeniorSpirit! Sacred Heart SeniorSpirit! is a free program for persons 55 and older. Benefits include free screenings, seminars, special in-patient benefits such as a free daily guest meal ticket and newspaper delivery, a monthly calendar of events detailing all SeniorSpirit! events, and a quarterly newsletter containing health and event information.
For more information on hearing loss or Senior Services at Sacred Heart Hospital, call (850) 416-7000 or visit us online at www.sacred-heart.org.
Thinking About Weight Loss Surgery? Free Seminar on July 19
Dr. Jeffrey L. Lord, a specialist in laparoscopic weight loss surgery, will present “Weight Loss Surgery: Is It Right for You?” on Thursday, July 19, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Sacred Heart Hospital Conference Center in Pensacola.
The only board-certified bariatric surgeon in Northwest Florida with advanced fellowship training in weight loss surgery, Dr. Lord serves as director of the Sacred Heart Institute for Surgical Weight Loss. He has special expertise in minimally invasive surgical weight loss procedures.
Dr. Lord and the Institute for Surgical Weight Loss can perform two types of weight loss surgery that use small incisions. The first is laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery, which involves a permanent rerouting of the digestive system that leaves patients with a small stomach pouch. The surgery creates a bypass that reroutes food around a portion of the small intestine.
The second, newer approach performed at Sacred Heart is adjustable gastric banding. Using a laparoscope, the surgeon places an inflatable band around the stomach, creating a small upper pouch at the top, with restricted passage to the rest of the stomach. This pouch fills quickly and creates a feeling of fullness.
Dr. Lord and his staff provide comprehensive evaluation of clinically obese patients to determine their candidacy for these life-changing procedures as well as extensive patient/family education to create a foundation for a healthy lifestyle.
Reservations are required for this free seminar. To make a reservation or to obtain more information, please call (850) 416-1628 or visit www.sacred-heart.org.
Sacred Heart Health System will provide free health screenings in July at sites in Escambia County and Santa Rosa County. The screening program targets persons who are poor, uninsured, or elderly.
Sacred Heart Health System broke ground June 21 on a 25-bed community hospital and medical office building in Port St. Joe that will serve Gulf and Franklin counties.
