Memorial pharmacist’s helpful act means a lot to COVID patient
Sometimes we can do things for others that seem small to us but are huge to those we do them for.
On a recent Friday morning, Brenda Clanton had just learned she had tested positive for COVID-19. The 68-year-old Niles woman was grateful to Dr. Chris Hall, her Beacon Medical Group family doctor, for encouraging her to be tested, since she had been ready to dismiss her cold-like symptoms as her seemingly annual bout with bronchitis.
Clanton was told that she could receive an infusion of the monoclonal antibody sotrovimab, which can prevent severe symptoms and hospitalization, at Community Hospital of Bremen. But she lacks a car. She considered having one of her five brothers drive her there, but she feared exposing them to COVID in the car.
Dr. Hall offered her an alternative: an anti-viral that’s in pill form, called paxlovid. But it had to be picked up from Memorial Hospital’s inpatient pharmacy rather than being called in to Clanton’s usual pharmacy in Niles.
It was now late in the afternoon and Clanton worried that picking up the prescription could be difficult over the weekend. As she was trying to reach one of her brothers to see if they could pick up the medicine for her, she received a call from Jamie Hall, Memorial’s inpatient pharmacy operations manager. (And, incidentally, is not related to Dr. Hall.)
As she was preparing to leave for the day, Jamie Hall saw Clanton’s prescription come in for processing, and she happened to notice that it would not be completely out of her way to swing by and drop it off.
Jamie Hall
She and Clanton agreed that she would leave it in her mailbox, and Clanton would wave to the pharmacy manager through the window to let her know that she saw her make the delivery.
Clanton is now feeling much better, and she wants Beacon to know what Jamie Hall had done.
“I said, ‘I don’t know if you believe in miracles, but I’m telling you, I can’t believe how smoothly this went,’” Clanton said. “I’ve got to believe that a lot of that was God, because who looks over, as they’re on their way out the door, they’re packed up, and they happen to see that? I’ve told everybody I know what all these Memorial people did, and I just want them all to know I really appreciate them.”
Jamie Hall said Clanton is “more appreciative than she should be.” But having had COVID herself last year, she understands how helpless and afraid one can feel when isolated with the virus.
“We had a lot of people who delivered groceries to our door or sent us Door Dash so that we didn’t have to think about making a meal or anything,” Jamie Hall said of her own family last year. “I know it’s a hard time when you’re quarantined and every little bit does help, so it’s very nice of her to be appreciative.”
