It’s not uncommon for a patient staying in a hospital for a long time to make a special connection or relationship with a team member providing their care. At BayCare, those connections are just one example of how we provide extraordinary and compassionate care on top of delivering the highest clinical excellence.
For Diane Sabel, 66, of Tampa, who was in BayCare's St. Joseph’s Hospital-North for 10 days, her connection to a team member included one of the four-legged variety – a dog named Lily.
Lily, is a 2 ½-year-old golden retriever and new to St. Joseph’s Hospital-North as in-house, facility pet therapy dog. She works five days a week, eight hours a day bringing love, companionship and joy to patients, visitors, medical staff and team members. She is part of the hospital's pet therapy team that includes eight other dogs but those eight usually visit the hospital only once a week for two hours.
“I was walking around the unit to regain my strength when I saw Lily and the dogs and they just made me smile and forget that I am sick,” Diane said.
“While I’m with them, I’m not dwelling on my issues, my surgeries and chemotherapies,” she said.
Sabel is a retired physician’s assistant with 36 years health care experience who has seen professionally the benefit of pet therapy for patients. She had numerous visits with Lily during her hospital stay.
“She came right back to me, she let me touch her, do anything with her, it’s like Lily is my own dog. Lily gave me a hug and even got in bed with me to give love," she said.
St. Joseph’s Hospital-North got the idea for a full-time facility dog from BayCare's St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital in Tampa where
Revere, a male Labrador Golden retriever mix, has been a facility dog working with pediatric patients since 2023.
“We saw how positive our pet therapy program was for patients and team members and wondered what it would look like to have that higher level of interaction with a facility dog here five days a week for eight hours a day,” said Mary Partridge, St. Joseph's Hospital-North operations director.
St. Joseph’s Hospital-North worked with Michigan-based
Paws With A Cause that places facility dogs in hospitals, schools, senior living and memory care facilities and other community settings. Paws With A Cause matched Lily with St. Joseph’s Hospital-North and began training for certification.
Lily's training to become a certified facility dog took about a year and was primarily in Michigan. She moved to Florida in June to finish training at the hospital. Training and certification for Lily's four St. Joseph's Hospital-North handlers also began after Lily came to Florida.
Those handlers include Gabrielle Fink from the hospital's rehabilitation department, Nurse Manager Kerry Hipple and Hailey MacNealy, behavioral health therapist. Outside the hospital, Lily lives with handler Crystal Herring, manager of the Care Coordination Department.
Visits from Lily happen throughout the hospital, including the emergency department, the infusion center and the hospital’s innovative
behavioral health unit where she regularly attends group therapy sessions.
“I see a lot of patients who have a lot of anxiety, depression and pain,” said handler Fink, an occupational therapist. “Just having Lily present in the therapy sessions have made a world of difference in how patients outcomes are. It’s been nothing but a blessing.”
Handler MacNealy has seen the impact Lily has had on SJHN team members. “Team members come to me all the time and tell me how much love and satisfaction they get from seeing Lily during a hard day at work,” she said. “The impact she has made on team members cannot be stated enough.”
“A lot of work has been done to see this project through,” said Partridge, St. Joseph’s Hospital-North’s operations director. “To see the impact Lily has made on so many people is really special.”
For more information:
St. Joseph’s Hospital-North
