WAILUA – The weather was less than ideal, but that didn’t stop the staff from the Samuel Mahelona Memorial Hospital from bringing about 40 of their long-term-care patients to Lydgate Park for their second beach outing of the summer. Josie
WAILUA – The weather was less than ideal, but that didn’t stop the staff from the Samuel Mahelona Memorial Hospital from bringing about 40 of their long-term-care patients to Lydgate Park for their second beach outing of the summer.
Josie Pablo, coordinator for the event, barely had time to catch her breath as she arrived home from Atlanta, Ga., where the rest of her family was involved in the National Inline Skating Hockey Championships, but had everything in place prior to leaving on the tour.
Twenty-three students from the Okinawa Prefectural College of Nursing were wrapping up the second week of their international seminar at Kaua‘i Community College, and joined the hospital staff as well as Boy Scout volunteers from Troop 83.
Joining the Okinawa contingent were KCC instructors Brian Yamamoto and Joanne Noone, Yamamoto being one of the coordinators, while Noone represents the KCC nursing department.
Pablo said the entire event involves volunteers from the community who step forward to enable the seniors to have a good time at the beach.
Drivers of the Kaua‘i Bus worked with operators of the hospital bus to transport the patients who were met at the park by the Boy Scouts and the Okinawa nursing students, who helped the patients out of the vehicles and prepared them for a morning outing in the protected ocean pool at Lydgate.
To keep everything authentic, Pablo coordinated with the hospital’s cafeteria and auxiliary members to make sure the beach-outing food is nutritious without losing the ambiance of an outing.
The outing was originally started by Pablo several years ago as a means of making sure the seniors have an opportunity to get out and enjoy the community many of them grew up in, and it was not uncommon to have visitors to Lydgate comment on how wonderful it was that the community could work with the hospital staff to provide for the seniors.
Along this line, more events are planned for the seniors, as the hospital staff will be accompanying a selected group of seniors to the Kapaa Jodo Mission bon dance tomorrow evening.
A lu‘au for the seniors will take place later this month on the hospital grounds, followed by their annual outing to the opening night of the Kauai County Farm Bureau Fair.
This fair outing will be immediately followed by the hospital hosting their own bon dance in the hospital courtyard, featuring the performance by the Ryukyukoku Matsuri Daiko to wrap up their summer schedule.
Dennis Fujimoto, staff writer, may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 253) or dfujimoto@pulitzer.net
