Norma Reyes stopped giving her children lots of soda and juice, allowing all four of them to split one small bottle on rare occasions. She lost 10 pounds and serves smaller meals at home. But the struggle continues with her husband and brother-in-law, who she said are both prediabetic and need reminding that, nutritionally, one beer equals two cups of rice. Reyes, 37, learned techniques to improve her family’s wellness through healthy eating and exercise in a lecture and Zumba series run by Luminis Health which serves a heavily Latino population in Prince George’s County, an area hit hard by coronavirus. At the height of the pandemic, the hospital system recruited churches to host education sessions and vaccine clinics, forging relationships helped them learn more about the needs of the community — a model providers aim to replicate in underserved areas.
Art cart makes healing rounds at St. Joseph Medical Center
One day before she was scheduled to have coronary bypass surgery at University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center after suffering a heart attack at 52, Danielle Giles focused her attention on painting a picture of a sandy beach. Watching an instructional video that played in her hospital room in early August, the parishioner of Church of the Nativity in Timonium carefully applied bright colors to her paper canvas. “It’s not very beautiful or anything,” Giles said with a laugh, “but just the act of touching the brush to paper is the relaxing part. It’s a good way to be distracted when you have heavy stuff going on.” Beginning in Summer 2021, University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center, Towson, has offered patients such as Giles the chance to relax and express themselves creatively through the hospital’s “Heart Cart” outreach.
