Butler Memorial Hospital Auxiliary raises over $10,000 for ‘Safe Sleep’ program
Al Brown has volunteered for the Butler Memorial Hospital Auxiliary for the past 23 years.
He works in the outpatient department, where he takes patients that are registered to the designated prep area and gets them ready for their surgery.
He brings them their gowns and slippers and gives the patient an idea of what to expect from nurses. He sometimes even gets their charts ready.
Brown also provides a sense of comfort for those who, he said, are “usually nervous or anxious” before they head in for surgery.
“It’s a chance to interact with people and try to make them feel better,” Brown said. “I try to get some of that anxiousness away from them, maybe through a joke or laugh about the weather.”
This year Brown, of Butler, along with the rest of the Butler Memorial Hospital Auxiliary have been able to provide comfort for more than 550 newborn babies with their $10,000 donation to support the purchase of HALO Sleepsack wearable blankets for the hospital.
Shayla Schuler, director of the obstetrics department, said the donation was the “defining factor” for the hospital to incorporate a Safe Sleep-certified program.
“This is huge for my department, it’s huge for the community,” Schuler said. “A lot of hospitals offer this type of program so I’m excited we’re going to offer it.”
The hospital offers education on the importance of a safe sleep area and now, thanks to the Butler Memorial Hospital Auxiliary, it is able to provide wearable blankets for the newborns.
According to the National Institutes of Health, a safe sleep area and wearable blankets can help reduce a baby’s risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and other sleep-related deaths, such as accidental suffocation.
“These babies, when they come home, can grab things and pull them to them but they have no reflex to pull it off themselves,” Schuler said. “So they can easily suffocate on that stuffed animal or that bumper that they roll and can’t roll back off. They don’t have those reflexes yet.”
The blankets the auxiliary provided are Safe Sleep approved, Schuler said.
“Instead of filling your baby’s crib or bassinet with six different blankets that the baby could potentially pull over their face,” Schuler said. “These just kind of swaddle the baby up and there is no risk of suffocation.”
The auxiliary was able to raise the $10,000 through numerous vendor and sales from the Cherry Tree gift shop throughout last year.
Maura West, president of the auxiliary, also volunteers in the gift shop. She said the gift shop not only provides a way for the auxiliary to raise money for the hospital but also provides hospital staff workers a convenient place to shop during their shifts.
“They work such long hours,” West said. “We’re sort of like the resource center for the nurses and whoever is in the hospital.”
The auxiliary has donated more than $800,000 to the BHS Foundation over the past 34 years, according to Kris Anne Bowser, the development manager of the Butler Health Services Foundation.
The foundation is the charitable program of the Independence Health System and Butler Memorial Hospital.
Before COVID, the auxiliary had more than 250 volunteers, according to West. Since the pandemic ended, the hospital has been operating with about 80 volunteers.
“It can be challenging at times,” West said.
Applications to become a volunteer for the Butler Memorial Hospital Auxiliary can be found on the hospital’s website at www.butlerhealthsystem.org/about-us/volunteer-opportunities.
