Pharmacy tech’s kindness brings patient to tears

Filling the prescription was easy.

Paying for it was not.

A patient was being discharged from PeaceHealth Peace Harbor Medical Center in Florence, Oregon for a pulmonary embolism. Without the prescription medication, he faced the very real risk of landing back in the hospital. What made things even more challenging was that the patient didn’t, at the time, have a place to call home.

That’s when Ken Wilkinson entered the picture.

Ken, a pharmacy technician who worked in retail pharmacies for years, happened to on the inpatient team at PeaceHealth Peace Harbor.

When he learned about the situation, he quickly researched and found available financial resources to make sure the patient didn’t go without the necessary medicine.

“When I later visited the patient, he got tears in his eyes and said that what Ken had done for him was the kindest thing that anyone has ever done for him,” said a hospitalist on the team, Christy Horton, MD.

She noted that finding financial assistance isn’t part of Ken’s ‘usual’ job, but she appreciated that he was able to help navigate the difficult situation that had landed this patient in the hospital.

All that Ken and the team did meant the patient's recovery—physical, emotional and spiritual—went so well that shortly following discharge from the hospital, the patient felt strong enough to travel out of state to live closer to his family.