ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 10, 1995 TAG: 9512110001
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
ROANOKE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL'S new guest rooms give relatives of patients convenience and ``a place to rest. We're stressed enough.''
A sign over the entrance to Roanoke's newest hotel reads simply: "Hospitality Suite." The interior is equally utilitarian. But the price is right, and the convenience is pure luxury.
The suite consists of nine rooms in a wing on Roanoke Memorial Hospital's eighth floor. On Nov. 22, the hospital began renting the rooms to relatives of patients for $15 a night, plus a one-time $5 key deposit.
All rooms have at least two beds, and some have private baths. Guests also have access to a kitchenette, a laundry room and a television-game room with sliding glass doors to a covered balcony.
The "Inn Within" - the name that eventually will go over the swinging doors to the suite - has been booked solid since it opened, said Peggy Crosson, director of patient services.
Sisters Judy Patterson of Knoxville, Tenn., and Alice Lawhorne of Charlottesville, guests for more than two weeks, said having a room at the hospital has allowed them to use more of their energies caring for their injured mother.
"I think it's made all the difference in mother's recovery," Patterson said.
Fox, who is 83, fell at her home in Rainelle, W.Va., Thanksgiving eve and fractured her skull. After being seen at Alleghany Regional Hospital in Low Moor, she was referred to Roanoke Memorial, which has a head trauma unit. She is scheduled to go home Monday.
Patterson and Lawhorne came immediately to be with their parents. They stayed the first three nights in a nearby motel, driving to and from the hospital as each took a turn at their mother's bedside.
It's been easier since they moved to the hospital, where they share a guest room with their stepfather, Lawrence Fox. The three take turns so that a family member is always with Goldie Fox. Until her fall, Fox and her husband had never spent a night apart. Having the family members inside the hospital made her feel more secure, the daughters said.
"It's given us a place to rest. We're stressed enough," said Lawhorne, who is an assistant director of risk management for the University of Virginia Medical Center.
Having guest rooms within a hospital is not a new idea, but it is a growing trend as hospitals find themselves with unused beds because insurance companies are insisting on increasingly shorter stays for patients.
Holston Valley Medical Center in Kingsport, Tenn., has had a guest unit for years. Its 11 rooms are rented for $20 a night to families of patients and to patients who are in town for treatment, such as chemotherapy, that doesn't require hospitalization but may continue over several days, said spokeswoman Margie Shealy.
A Holston Valley Medical foundation even pays the room rental for families who can't afford it, Shealy said.
Roanoke Memorial also will allow patients who do not require hospitalization for their treatment to rent the rooms. Already, several out-of-town patients scheduled for early morning outpatient surgery have come in the night before, Crosson said.
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: WAYNE DEEL/Staff. Sisters Judy Patterson (right) ofby CNBKnoxville, Tenn., and Alice Lawhorne of Charlottesville say having a
room at the hospital has allowed them to use more of their energy
caring for their injured mother. color.