Nurse takes family photos to hospitalized patients with Covid-19

Jeanna Barbieri is an emergency room nurse, who was taking care of patients with Covid-19 at the Lowell General Hospital. Working in the frontlines of the pandemic, she was working closely with infected patients and found out that the father of an old high school friends was hospitalized at the unit where she worked. She offered to take some photos of family and friend to comfort the patients, as she explains: "They ended up printing out some photos and putting them in their mailbox and I grabbed them from their mailbox on the way into work the next day. Seeing how doable that was and how much it seemed to help him and his family, I just decided to go for it.".

So, Jeanna bought a small photo printer and, with the support of the hospital, created the Pictures for Patients initiative. She spread the word and, in the first week alone, she delivered photos to more than 20 patients.

The hospital has created a special webpage for this initiative and family members of patients at the hospital can send pictures through the dedicated e-mail address picturesforpatients@lowellgeneral.org

The initiative has been a great success and it already being replicated in other hospital around the country. Jeanna is very happy with the outcome: "Just to see how excited they were to have that piece of comfort with him, it made me realize I want to do more of that. I never imagined in a million years it would turn into anything other than a small project."

Adapted from: https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/wellness/story/er-nurse-decorates-pat...
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/23/health/nurses-photos-for-patients-trn...

More information: https://www.lowellgeneral.org/news-and-media/news/pictures-for-patients