EFCC Welcomes Much Needed Guesthouse (continued)
The Ernest and Eugenia Wyatt Guest House - also named for Eugenia's husband, Ernest, who preceded her in death - is expected to be completed in 2001. The guest house, which will be located on the northwest corner of the Ellis Fischel campus, will offer patients a place to rest, eat a meal, launder clothing and share feelings with others who have similar experiences. It will be staffed by volunteers and existing Ellis Fischel employees from such departments as Security, Housekeeping, Nutrition and Food Services, and Patient and Family Support Services.
Vacant patient beds on Ellis Fischel's fourth floor currently are the only guest accommodations the cancer center has to offer patients and their families. These quarters have the bleak look of abandoned hospital rooms. Support staff assistance is not provided because patients must be well enough to care for themselves to stay in the area. And because the patients who need accommodations outnumber the available rooms, some people must be turned away.
"I would sometimes visit a lady on the fourth floor," Wilson says. "She had a plain bed in the older part of the hospital. But she was just happy to have a place to lay her head down."
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