Central Texas
TOUCHING LIVES IN CENTRAL TEXAS
By Rosa Winfrey

"Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too."
Frederick Buechner

Our Compassionate Touch program is pleased to be able to extend our funding to the Central Texas area hospitals. I had the opportunity along with Tom Nuckels, Chaplain and Brenda Tolbert, Development Assistant for Compassionate Touch to meet with Transplant Unit social workers from the Temple and Austin area hospitals. Many lives are being touched through a generous donation received specifically for solid organ transplant patients. Patients will be provided with funding toward assistance with parking, housing, meals or other needed expenses. The two hospitals receiving transplant funding are Seton Medical Center in Austin and Scott & White in Temple.

Seton Medical Center is Austin's largest medical/surgical acute care center and the region's largest public service organization. Seton contributed more than $237 million to care for the poor last year. Furthermore, the hospital offers comprehensive diagnostic and treatment services for both inpatients and outpatients. Their regional specialty programs include the Seton Heart Specialty Care and Transplant Center, Shivers Cancer Programs and the Marialice Shivers Regional Neonatal Center. Seton Medical Center is the only hospital in Central Texas that performs heart transplants.

For the fifth straight year Scott & White has been named to the list of the "Thomson 100 Top Hospitals in the Country." Scott & White is the largest multi-specialty practice in Texas with more than 500 physicians who care for patients in Temple and numerous regional clinics throughout Central Texas. Scott & White Renal Transplant Program provides kidney & kidney/pancreas transplants. Gregory Jaffers, M.D. performed the first Scott & White kidney transplant in 1977 and the first kidney/ pancreas transplant in 1998. Dr. Jaffers remains the Division Director of Transplant Surgery and has a huge following of love and satisfied patients from over the years.

Lifeline Chaplaincy's Compassionate Touch program would like to thank our many donors and welcomes your dedicated financial support so that we can continue providing needed resources to patients doing their time of need. Our consensus is the same as Frederick Buechner: "There can never really be any peace and joy for Compassionate Touch until there is some peace and joy for the patients whom we serve."
 



SETON HOSPITAL photo left to right:
Rosa Winfrey, Director of Compassionate Touch,
Leslie Goldstein, Transplant Unit Social Worker,
Nancy McDow, Transplant Unit Social Worker,
Martha Alexander, Compassionate Touch Assistant



SCOTT & WHITE HOSPITAL photo left to right:
Ed Lara, Transplant Social Worker,
Ray Alerman, Transplant Social Worker,
Tom Nuckels, Lifeline Chaplaincy -Central Texas Chaplain


One of Scott & White social worker writes -
"With Lifeline Chaplaincy's recent introduction of the Compassionate Touch program in Central Texas, we feel very blessed to offer these services to our patients. Thank you in advance for the much needed assistance. We look forward to the ongoing relationship between our hospital and Compassionate Touch."

Ray ALeman LCSW, BCD
Transplant Social Worker
Scott & White Memorial Hospital

  
 
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ST. DAVID'S MEDICAL CENTER, AUSTIN
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