November, as Home Health Care Month, is a time to recognize home healthcare providers like Mary Leinonen, who works as a physical therapist for Gentiva Home Healthcare.
Recognizing the value is important, she said, “to shine a light to the many people who are shut in and working hard to get back into the community and the things they love so that they won’t be forgotten, and the staff who work hard to accomplish that every day.”
One of those patients is Quin Outlaw of Kinston. She hadn’t been able to get into a vehicle without a wheelchair lift since July, Leinonen said.
“The occupational therapist and I were able to help (Outlaw) with a sliding board and she was just glowing,” Leinonen said. “It’s moments like that when you realize this is why I do this.”
What might seem like a minor step of progress is a milestone event because it means Outlaw’s family or friends can pick her up and take her to her appointments or shopping, rather than a van with a wheelchair lift.
And milestones like this occur because of the tireless work of home health nurses and other home healthcare providers.
Physical therapy wasn’t what Leinonen originally planned as a career. A native of Maine, she attended Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg, Va., in pursuit of an architecture degree.
Leinonen decided she wasn’t cut out for that job. Her interest in fitness and health and regular visits to the gym indicated to her that physical therapy might be better suited for her.
In 1994, she graduated from a 5-year program at Northeastern University in Boston with a Bachelor of Science degree in physical therapy and moved to Kinston where she started working at Lenoir Memorial Hospital.
Leinonen said she enjoyed in-patient physical therapy, but in-home care gives her something more.
“It has become my ministry,” she said. “You get to have one-on-one with people in their own environment so they open up to you in a way that they don’t in other settings.
“It’s just a more holistic approach. You get to know their family dynamics — things that affect their health. You get a clearer picture of what they are going through.”
Since 1996, Leinonen has been working either part-time, along with working at LMH, or fulltime at Gentiva. Now fulltime at Gentiva, she sees an average of 35 patients a week.
The job requires lots of driving. She used to travel to Wallace and even Lumberton, but with the Pink Hill facility in place, she mainly stays in Lenoir County, with some patients in surrounding counties.
All of her patients are adults who are considered homebound. Once independent, their lives have become fairly dependent due to possibly a stroke, joint replacement, heart attack, heart surgery, spinal cord injury or car accident, she said.
“Our goal and mission is to get them non-homebound,” Leinonen said.
She tries to get her patients to focus on a goal, such as being able to play a certain sport or walk again.
It’s tough work.
“It’s a labor of love,” she said. “You have to be relatively strong.”
But that hard physical work pays off in having a fulfilling career.
“I feel like God has me here in the Bible Belt to use me in home health to bring the hope of Jesus Christ to our patients,” she said.
Margaret Fisher can be reached at 252-559-1082 or Margaret.Fisher@Kinston.com. Follow her on Twitter @MargaretFishr.