Adult Day Center Opens January 6!
Posted on Friday, January 3rd, 2014
Mercy Love County Adult Day Center & Family Services (foreground) at 200 Wanda St., Marietta, OK, is one block south of its parent organization, Mercy Health/Love County Hospital & Clinic (background). The Adult Day Center will furnish social activities in a medically-supervised setting during weekdays for adults with dementia or physical challenges. The Family Services department will bring Marietta-based Licensed Professional Counseling services back to Love County individuals and families after a 10-year absence.
(seated) Maria Flores-Contreras, CNA/Activities Director; Connie Nunes, RN; (standing) Darian Rife, CNA; Lou Wilson, CNA; Bruce Hammond, MSA, MS; Glenda Brown, busienss office coordinator.
Hospital Opening Adult Day Center
Marietta’s first adult day center begins accepting clients on Monday, January 6. A public open house and ribbon cutting will follow on Sunday, January 12 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Finishing touches are being made to Mercy Love County Adult Day Center & Family Services at 200 Wanda Street, one block south of the hospital.
The center will provide a group-setting program of services for adults who need supervised care in a safe place outside the home during the day.
The day center is under local hospital ownership and management. It is licensed by the State of Oklahoma.
“This day center will answer a great need for affected senior adults and their family caregivers. We feel truly fortunate as a hospital to be able to step up with professional and compassionate services that will improve the quality of life for these individuals and their loved ones,” said Richard Barker, FACHE, Mercy Health/Love County Hospital administrator and long-term care administrator.
Day center hours will be 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Cost will be $60 for a full day or $30 for a half-day of attendance.
Capacity in the program will be 35-40 adults.
Applications for participation are being accepted now at the day center or by calling 276-1542 to schedule an appointment.
Participation will be limited to those with diagnosed dementias or developmental disabilities who cannot structure daily activities on their own but are mobile with possible use of cane, walker, or wheelchair.
There will be an interview with the applicant’s family caregivers and a medical evaluation of the applicant by physicians at the nearby clinic to determine eligibility.
Bruce Hammond, MBA, MS, has been hired as director of the center. Glenda Brown will be business office coordinator.
Also on staff are Connie Nunes, a registered nurse, to manage client medications, and three Certified Nurse’s Aides (CNA): Maria Flores-Contreras, Darian Rife, and Lou Wilson. All are certified activity directors.
The hospital’s dietary department will provide participants with breakfast, lunch, and snacks, and those with special dietary needs will be offered special meals.
Personal care will include help with bathing, toileting, grooming, eating, and other personal activities of daily living.
Therapeutic activities will include indoor and outdoor exercise, recreational games, musical entertainment, puzzles, arts and crafts, stretching and gentle exercise, gardening, television, and movies.
A van will take clients on field trips.
Hammond has spent several months overseeing extensive renovations to the building and grounds.
“We invite everyone to join us at the open house on January 12 and see the quality that is here in our facility and its services,” Hammond said.
Inside are a variety of special purpose rooms. The largest room accommodates social activities like sitting and visiting, playing board or video games, watching movies, or exercising.
Another activities/dining room accommodates meals at one end and a dozen therapeutic recliners at the other for post-meal TV or naps.
A linen closet supplies pillows and blankets, though Hammond said he hoped to find a volunteer group that would consider making homemade-type lap throws.
A smaller room across the hall is for getting away from the crowd and watching TV or resting quietly.
It also will function as a meeting room for a caregivers support group.
The large kitchen has a new commercial stove and dishwasher.
Handicapped-accessible bathrooms include aide-attended showers.
Two sizable outdoor patios extend along the south and east. The south patio is glassed in and climate-controlled for year-round enjoyment.
The other has a barbecue cooker, beach umbrellas, lawn chairs and access to a fenced in yard.
Flower and landscaping boxes have been constructed on the west side near the main entry, and they are filled with beautiful plants and trees purchased by the Hospital Auxiliary (Pink Ladies).
There is plenty of parking in an enlarged and newly paved lot. Wheelchair ramps allow entry from the south or west.
The hospital purchased the building in 2012 from Mental Health Services of Southern Oklahoma.
The building opened in 1994 as an outpatient clinic of MHSSO.
In 2002, clinic functions ceased and MHSSO turned the unit into a residential care facility for clients in transition from inpatient care. In 2012, MHSSO closed the facility.
The renovations that have been accomplished by the hospital, Hammond said, have been done with an eye to establishing a variety of rooms and a combination of social, health, therapeutic and individual activities that will become a model adult day care facility for other communities to consider.
Adult Day Center Staff Profiles
Bruce Hammond, Director
Hammond is a former U.S. Air Force enlisted member and business management professional who made a mid-life career change into counseling and psychology. His experience includes eight years in the active military and four years as a reserve member in Air Force personnel and management; and four years at Lucent Technologies in Oklahoma City, all supported by his Master of Business Administration degree from Colorado Technical University in 2003 and his Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology from OSU in 1997. He moved to Ardmore (wife Shana Tate Hammond’s hometown) in 2003 as interim director of the Family Shelter of Southern Oklahoma, an experience that motivated him to retool for counseling. In 2013, Hammond completed a master’s degree in psychology from East Central and is a candidate for licensure as a Licensed Professional Counselor in spring 2014. He will be equipped to lead the family support component of the center. In addition, there will be individual and family counseling for the public, as Hammond will be the only LPC in Love County. Hammond grew up in a military family, attending high school in Japan and Alabama. He remembers his grandparents fondly. “They were loving grandparents, and one was deeply affected by Alzheimer’s disease.”
Bruce Hammond
Connie Nunes, R.N.
Nunes has been hired as the staff’s registered nurse, on hand daily to assist clients. She will administer medications, do blood sugar checks, take vital signs and weight, monitor special diets, and give emergency first aid. Nunes noted the specialness of having an adult day center affiliated with a hospital and clinic. “Dr. Stephen Hutchins is medical director, and a whole physician and clinical staff is standing behind us, very supportive of us,” she said. Nunes also pointed out that the floor plans and furnishings of the center meet state codes for long-term care. “We’ll make this a good experience in a safe and secure place,” Nunes said. Nunes is new to a day center but not to nursing services for the elderly. Her experience includes 13 years as a long-term director for a nursing home and seven years before that as an adjunct nursing instructor at SOTC in Ardmore. “This is a new challenge, but well worth taking, to keep people in their hometown and in communication with their children and grandchildren. People do better with what they know and are comfortable with,” Nunes said.
Connie Nunes
Glenda Brown, Business Office Coordinator
Brown has more than 20 years of experience in coordinator assignments in mental health, child, and adult social service agencies in the Ardmore area. “She has a warm and calming effect on people and will be a huge resource in helping care proceed,” Hammond said. “I will be greeting customers, assisting in the application and payment process, giving tours, monitoring support services to family members, overseeing the meals and snacks, and answering peoples’ concerns,” Brown said. “Meantime,” she added, “Connie Nunes, our registered nurse, will be greeting current customers with me, asking about their health status, any problems they might have had the night before, whether they need medication or bathing assistance during the day at the center. We want family caregivers to feel safe leaving their loved ones here.” Since 2009, Brown has been on task to graduate from college. She has earned an Associate of Science degree from Murray State College and will graduate in the spring from East Central University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in human services and counseling and a minor in psychology. Outside of work, she is a Court-Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) volunteer appointed by a judge to assist children who are in the court system as a result of abuse or neglect. Brown took care of her mother, Henri Mae President, who died with Alzheimer’s disease in 1991. Out of high school in 1969, Brown worked as a certified nurse’s aide in a nursing home.
Glenda Brown
Darian Rife, CNA, CMA
Rife earned certification as a nurse’s aide, medication aide, and phlebotomist from Southern Oklahoma Technology Center, all while in high school at Lone Grove. She graduated last May. She trained and worked at Elmbrook Nursing Home for one year. “I have an interest in the elderly. I like to listen and interact with them,” Rife said.
Darian Rife
Lou Wilson, CNA
Lou Wilson, a graduate of Turner High School, spent 30 years in the hospitality and restaurant industry in Dallas before returning to her family home in the local area in 2000. She worked at Denim’s until it closed. “Serving the public, I learned to ‘read people,’ talk to them and get along,” Wilson said. After taking care of her mother, Ollivee Wilson, who died in 2006 at the age of 93, Wilson became interested in elder care as a living. She took CNA training in Madill to prepare for this job. “I am looking forward to introducing my coworkers to the wonderful Love County seniors we will be helping,” Wilson said.
Lou Wilson
Maria Flores-Contreras, CNA/Activities Director
Contreras holds an Associate of Science degree from Murray State College and certifications as a nurse’s aide and patient activities director. “I am interested in the medical and nursing field and plan to continue my education at a four-year college,” Flores-Contreras said. She has been filling in as a CNA at the hospital and clinic on weekends and other occasions. Flores-Contreras lives in Madill, where she graduated from high school in 2010.
Maria Flores-Contreras
Joe Bell performed numerous renovations to the building, and here is seen last November painting the railings on the wheelchair-entry ramp to a glassed-in, climate-controlled porch added to the south side of Mercy Love County Adult Day Center & Family Services.
Nathan Teafatiller applies flooring to glassed-in porch on the south side of Mercy Love County Adult Day Center & Family Services.