LUTZ – It’s not uncommon for a patient staying in a hospital for a long time to make a special connection with a team member providing their care.
For Diane Sabel, 66, of Tampa, who was in Lutz’s St. Joseph’s Hospital-North for 10 days, her connection to a team member included one of the four-legged variety – a dog named Lily.
Lily is a 2-year-old female golden retriever and new to St. Joseph’s Hospital-North as in-house facility pet therapy dog. She works five days a week, eight hours a day, bringing love, companionship and joy to patients, visitors and staff. She is part of the hospital’s pet therapy team that includes eight other dogs, but those eight usually visit the hospital once a week for two hours.
“I was walking around the unit to regain my strength when I saw Lily and the dogs and they just made me smile and forget that I am sick,” Sabel said.
Sabel is a retired physician’s assistant with 36 years of health care experience who has seen professionally the benefit of pet therapy for patients. She had numerous visits with Lily during her hospital stay.
“It’s like Lily is my own dog,” she said. “Lily gave me a hug and even got in bed with me to give love.”
St. Joseph’s Hospital-North got the idea for a full-time facility dog from BayCare’s St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital in Tampa where Revere, a male Labrador-golden retriever mix, has been a facility dog working with pediatric patients since 2023.
“We saw how positive our pet therapy program was for patients and team members and wondered what it would look like to have that higher level of interaction with a facility dog here five days a week for eight hours a day,” said Mary Partridge, St. Joseph’s Hospital-North’s operations director.
St. Joseph’s Hospital-North worked with Michigan-based Paws With A Cause that places facility dogs in hospitals, schools, senior living and memory care facilities and other community settings. Paws With A Cause matched Lily with St. Joseph’s Hospital-North and began training for certification. Lily’s training to become a certified facility dog took about a year and was primarily in Michigan.
She moved to Florida in June to finish training at the hospital. Training and certification for Lily’s four St. Joseph’s Hospital-North handlers also began after Lily came to Florida. Lily’s training and certification were completed at the end of October. She’s been on the job full-time since then.
Lily’s four handlers are Gabrielle Fink, occupational therapist; Crystal Herring, care coordination manager; Kerry Hipple, nurse manager; and Hailey MacNealy, behavioral health therapist. Lily’s home outside the hospital is with Herring’s family.
Visits from Lily happen throughout the hospital, including the emergency department, the infusion center and the hospital’s innovative behavioral health unit where she regularly attends group therapy sessions.
“I see a lot of patients who have a lot of anxiety, depression and pain,” said handler Fink, the occupational therapist. “Just having Lily present in the therapy sessions has made a world of difference in how patients’ outcomes are. It’s been nothing but a blessing.”
MacNealy has seen the impact Lily has had on St. Joseph’s Hospital-North staff.
“Team members come to me all the time and tell me how much love and satisfaction they get from seeing Lily during a hard day at work,” she said. “The impact she has made on team members cannot be stated enough.”
“A lot of work has been done to see this project through,” said Partridge, the St. Joseph’s Hospital-North operations director. “To see the impact Lily has made on so many people is really special.”
