Fountain Valley Regional Hospital celebrates volunteers — including the furry, four-legged kind
Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center has more than 300 volunteers, not all of them people but all appealing to what it means to be human.
Bella and Sparky, miniature poodles and therapy dogs who visit patients to project calm and provide cheer during what can be stressful and painful times, politely received accolades this week at the hospital’s annual volunteer appreciation event — with no table scraps from the luncheon and no barking, as they are trained to be very good girls.
Their handlers are retirees and neighbors who bonded over a shared mission to offer pet therapy.
Marilyn Burgner was walking through her Anaheim neighborhood a couple of years ago when she met Niurys Prado and Sparky. Burgner decided she had to have the same kind of dog.
She had Bella’s name and career planned before the pup was even born.
The two women started taking their dogs to a senior home. About a year ago, they also started bringing them to Fountain Valley Regional. They usually work as a team.
“Nothing is more rewarding than seeing a smile on the patient’s face and to have them say, ‘You made my day,’” Burgner said.
Hospital Chief Executive Kenneth McFarland thanked volunteers like Burgner during Tuesday’s appreciation event “for being part of our hands, part of our feet; the eyes that see; the ears that hear.”
He said he likes to chat with everyone he sees when walking the hospital campus, including the volunteers, who tend to be shy and humble.
The volunteer corps is mostly high school and college students, many of them considering health care careers. Volunteer Coordinator David Heineman said older adults make up about 10% of the team and more are encouraged to sign up.
Burgner, who formerly worked in a middle and high school front office, knew she wanted to volunteer in her retirement. She has custom-printed baseball cards featuring Bella’s teddy bear-like face that list her best trick as “teaching humans to give me treats.”
Prado, a former travel agent, said Sparky’s best skill is simply being present, calmly sitting on beds — though she also can sneeze on command. Joint-replacement patients may be able to identify with the little poodle, who has had both hips replaced.
Sparky is 7 years old with curls the color of dark smoke. Bella is 2 and a little smaller than Sparky, with ginger fur. They are both well-coiffed and wear official photo ID badges like all other hospital volunteers, only on their harnesses rather than shirts.
Another volunteer, Will Baker, experienced Fountain Valley Regional’s services firsthand before he offered any of his own. He went there for a heart attack, then came back for fun.
In August 2017, Baker felt an odd heaviness in his arms after a chiropractor’s appointment. Knowing it wasn’t related, he drove himself to Huntington Beach Hospital. A doctor there recognized a heart attack and sent him to Fountain Valley Regional in an ambulance for emergency care.
Baker said he had a “widowmaker” attack with almost full arterial blockage, which was corrected with a stent.
The first things he saw, and that stuck with him, were the volunteers who pointed medics where to take him.
Baker also remembered being confused by hospital paperwork and thinking there had to be a better way to organize it. He joined Fountain Valley Regional’s Patient Family Advisory Council, which offers constructive feedback on how to improve hospital services.
With his paperwork improvements underway, he’s stuck around. One of his next projects is making a guide to help patients and visitors understand the complicated remote controls for their in-room televisions.
When he seems a problem, he likes to fix it.
“I like to help people not have that problem,” he said. “There’s satisfaction in seeing a result.”
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