WARRENSBURG — Western Missouri Medical Center invites Johnson County residents to come together to honor frontline workers and in remembrance of those who died as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic during “A Light to Remember, A Hope for Tomorrow” at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 10.
WWWC encourages businesses and citizens to participate by turning on business lights and porch lights on Wednesday evening for the luminary remembrance event.
Citizens can partake in the event by parking their vehicle in the hospital’s west parking lot with their lights turned on at 7 p.m. At 7:15 p.m., 1450 KOKO will play a song, a moment of silence and a brief message to the community.
The community event was organized by the Johnson County COVID-19 Task Force, which is comprised of representatives of county agencies such as WMMC, Johnson County Sheriff’s Office and Johnson County Emergency Management Agency.
The event is being hosted one year after March 2020, when the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a world pandemic.
“We’ve faced all of these challenges, but I think we’ve grown stronger together,” WMMC Strategy and Development Executive Tara Carlyle said. “This is a way to remember the people we’ve lost and the challenges and struggles that we’ve come through, but come back together now that the vaccine is here and look forward to the future and have a hopeful tomorrow.”
For the event, the hospital asks that attendees remain in their vehicles and wear masks.
Carlyle said as one of the health care leaders of the county, the hospital wanted to continue setting an example for the community by hosting an outdoor event that honors individuals while following COVID-19 safety protocols.
Since the start of the pandemic, the WMMC staff has worked to not only treat COVID-19 patients, but also all of the patients in need of care not related to the virus.
Carlyle said the staff has also worked to adjust many of the hospital’s processes in the year since the COVID-19 pandemic began in order to care for COVID-19 patients as well as keep its other patients and staff as safe as possible from the virus.
Carlyle said WMMC staff member Mark Pluym, MD, MSC, researched how to best care for COVID-19 patients and suggested the hospital utilize Airvo equipment to reduce the risk of patients being put on ventilators, which the WMMC Foundation was able to help purchase.
The hospital staff also worked to set up and host one of the community’s first COVID-19 testing sites.
In order to protect patients, Carlyle said the nursing staff began wearing a variety of different personal protective equipment before entering a patient’s room.
In addition to the work done by WMMC staff, she said the community and county agencies have also played a role in making it through the pandemic.
Carlyle said county agencies, including the agencies involved in the Johnson County COVID-19 Task Force, have consistently worked to limit the virus’ spread through the county.
She said the community donated more than 55,000 personal protective equipment items to the hospital when it was in need of them during the PPE shortage last year.
Carlyle said the community has come together to support each other during the pandemic more than she has ever seen during her career.
