SPOTLIGHT RONALD McDONALD FAMILY ROOM

Newest room at Mercy gives respite to families

ROGERS - No parent wants to have a child in the hospital.

But it’s a reality for many parents. Babies are born prematurely, children get hurt or develop serious illnesses, and they are hospitalized for weeks, if not months.

Knowing that these parents are facing incredibly difficult circumstances, the people behind the Ronald McDonald Family Room are there to help. The state’s newest family room opens July 16 at Mercy Hospital Northwest Arkansas in Rogers, and starting that evening, it will provide comfort to parents and family members of ailing children.

The family room provides a comfortable, friendly place to stay and gives those who need to use it a place to have time alone.

“I didn’t realize until quite a while afterward” what the experience meant, says Chad Evans of Bentonville. “They make it a point to not be too obtrusive in your life. At that moment they understand where your focus is and what your focus is.”

In November 1996, Evans’ wife, Jana, unexpectedly went into labor while taking a certified professional accountant examination in Pine Bluff. She was rushed to the hospital, where she gave birth to their son Jacob, at just 24 weeks’ gestation and weighing about a pound and a half.

They were immediately airlifted to Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, where Jacob would spend the next five months. Jana Evans spent those months across the street, at the Ronald McDonald Family House.

Like the one that is opening in Rogers, the LittleRock location does not charge parents a daily rate for their stay; instead, it is suggested they contribute whatever is within their means.

“It was either that or stay in the waiting room at the hospital, or a hotel - which we could not afford for that long,” Evans says. “A few hotels gave discounted rates, but even at $50 a night, it adds up.”

It’s more than just financial relief, though; the family room provides emotional relief as well. The Rogers location has four bedrooms, laundry facilities, a business room and a fully stocked kitchen.

There’s also a living room and dining room, where families can talk to one another as they are going through times of crisis.

“What was very good for me was being with other mothers who were going through the same thing,” Evans says. “It’s nice to have someone there you can lean on.”

As the Evans family has moved around in subsequent years, Chad and Jana have remained supporters of family rooms. In Joplin, Mo., she volunteered at the family room, checking in families, answering phones, and providing comfort for exhausted and frightened parents.

Every family room is special, they say, but the one opening in Rogers may be the nicest of all. The space was formerly a sleeping lounge and library for physicians, and has undergone an extensive renovation that cost around $500,000.

Program manager Leah Jones says that in constructing the family room, advice was sought from directors of existing family rooms. That’s why the one in Rogers has a play room, built with siblings of sick children in mind.

“We’ve kept all the main concepts the same, but the main difference is the play room,” Jones says. “It’s an outlet for kids. When kids are in the waiting room, they’re crawling the walls. They get restless. Siblings are affected too when a sibling is ill.”

The majority of those who stay in the family room will be people whose children are in Mercy’s neonatal intensive care or pediatrics units, butit’s available for any parents whose child is a patient at Mercy Health Systems - not just those whose children are hospitalized at the Rogers location.

Nor is the family room limited to those who are staying overnight; it can be used as a short-term respite.

“Let’s say you live in Huntsville and have appointments at 8 and 10 and 3, and have nowhere to go during that time period,” Jones says. “This is a great place to go foryou and your child, to have that play area, to have lunch or breakfast.”

For more information about the Ronald McDonald Family Room, call (479) 756-5600 or visit rmhcofarkoma. org.

Northwest Profile, Pages 27 on 07/07/2013

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