|
|
|
|
Mail Delivery Mail is delivered directly to your room. Mail you wish to receive at the hospital should be addressed as follows:
Mail arriving following your departure will be forwarded to your home address. Please ask family and friends to include your first and last name on their cards and letters. If you have letters to send, give them to the staff person who brings your mail or to the nursing staff. Newspapers Newspapers are available free of charge. To obtain a newspaper, please ask the nursing staff. Cash and Stamps Checks for up to $5 may be cashed at the Business Office window located in the main lobby area between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. Individual stamps may be purchased from the Business Office. Blood Bank The Wessington Springs community uses units of blood each year to meet the needs of the surgery patients, patients with cancer, heart disease, leukemia, severe anemia, bone and joint disorders as well as trauma from automobile and other accidents. Avera Weskota Memorial Medical Center receives blood products from Siouxland Community Blood Bank. Their sole purpose is to provide a safe and dependable supply of voluntarily donated blood to patients in Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota. It is safe to donate blood. Infectious disease cannot be acquired when donating blood because all equipment used is sterile and used only once. Siouxland Community Blood Bank personnel provide a medical screening for donors to make sure they are qualified to donate. This protects the health of the donor as well as the health of the patient who will receive the blood. Siouxland Community Blood Bank personnel monitor donors during the donation process. The blood goes through several different screening tests prior to being accepted. The best part of being a blood donor is knowing that it saves lives. One donation of blood, when divided into its component parts, can help as many as five patients. DELETE: You may also donate blood in advance for personal or family use. Donors must be at least 17 years old, weigh a minimum of 110 pounds and be in general good health. A photo ID is required for all donations. The complete blood donation process takes approximately one hour with the actual blood collection taking about 10 minutes. To find out how you can become a blood donor, call Judy Goldhammer at Siouxland Community Blood Bank at 1-800-798-4208 or locally Mette Ness at 605-539-1221. Organ and Tissue Donations More than 600,000 Americans could benefit today if enough organs and tissues were available. For many diseases, organ transplantation is the only acceptable medical treatment to offer a chance of survival. Heart and liver donations are a matter of immediate life and death. Donated kidneys eliminate weekly dialysis treatments. A donated pancreas may "cure" someone's diabetes. Donated eyes not only provide corneas for sight-restoring corneal transplantations but also vital eye tissue for other surgical procedures and for research into blinding eye disorders. Bone transplants may avert a need for amputation; skin donations save the lives of severe burn victims. The careful techniques developed and followed by physicians and trained techniques are designed to prevent any change in the donor's appearance. The family of a donor does not receive or pay any fees. The family does not pay any hospital or physician fees associated with organ and tissue removal. If you are interested in participating in this program please notify your physician or nurse.
|
|
