A legacy of kindness

To understand why Georgina Damoah feels such a deep concern for her patients, you have to understand how a tragedy in her family shaped her.

In 2005, her father died in a hospital in Ghana. He was walking home from the store when a motorist hit him. He died in the hospital where Damoah said they offered him good care and helped her and her family in the moments after he passed. She felt a sense of love from the nurses and all the medical staff.

She vowed to pass that along, that sense of care and love, to her patients.

“I always make sure I do whatever I can to help a patient,” she says.

Damoah is a lead patient care associate. Since she began working for The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in 2015, she’s worked on the same unit, in Rhodes Hall, assisting patients with liver, pancreas and kidney disorders.

Many of her patients she’s known for a while. They come every few months, arriving often pale or jaundiced, and leave with their natural color back.

Damoah checks their blood pressure and their pulse. She helps them get in and out of bed, walk to the bathroom, bathe and sometimes eat if they’re unable to do so themselves. And she tries to offer reassurance if they need it.

Just the other day, she talked to a patient who worried about having to stay in the hospital another day.

“I said, ‘Hon, you don’t need to go home. Here, they’ll learn a lot about your health. They’ll make sure you’re fine when you leave.’”

The woman later thanked her for easing her worries.

Damoah thrives on the camaraderie on her unit. People support each other. If Damoah needs help moving a patient or grabbing new sheets, she can call for assistance and someone on staff is right there. It may even be the nursing supervisor stepping in.

“What inspires me is the teamwork and the love that I feel from my patients and my co-workers.”