A Real Life Fairy Godmother at Holtz Children’s Hospital
Kim Juanico is everything a nurse should be: skilled, compassionate, and nurturing. But she is also a memory maker, someone who turns dreams into reality – a Fairy Godmother of sorts.
As the pediatric palliative care nurse coordinator at Holtz Children’s Hospital, Kim provides quality-of-life care for some of our most ill patients. She cares for babies, children, and teenagers suffering from life-limiting illnesses, like cancer, heart disease, and organ failure. Many of Kim’s patients are terminally ill. They spend more time in the hospital than at their homes, meaning many of them miss out on small, everyday joys.
Kim’s passion is simple: to do whatever she can to create good memories for Holtz Children’s patients and their families. The impact she has on each of them is immeasurable.
Soon after the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Jackson hospitals began receiving an influx of patients injured in the disaster. Among those was a Haitian boy who suffered life-threatening burns. From the day he arrived in the pediatric intensive care unit at Holtz Children’s, Kim was his nurse. She was deeply moved by his mother’s desperation.
Dressed in the same clothes she was wearing when the earthquake ravaged her homeland, this young woman stood beside her son’s bedside. She was exhausted, distraught and struggling to care for her sick child in an unfamiliar place. She was also wrestling with another worry: She did not know if the rest of her family in Haiti was dead or alive.
Kim was determined to help her. She rallied a group of nurses and began collecting clothes for this woman, so that she would have something clean to wear. She also bought her a phone card to try and track down her family in Haiti.
“I was in the room when she was finally able to connect with her loved ones and find out that they had all survived,” Kim recalled. “I didn’t understand a word she was saying, but I knew it was a special moment that she’d never forget. I knew we were on to something, and couldn’t stop there.”
Kim organized ongoing collections of clothing, toiletries, strollers, sheets, toys, food – basically any item that families of sick children would need to be comfortable while staying in the hospital and during their recovery at home – and asked that her colleagues in the Holtz Children’s Hospital Pediatric Intensive Care Unit make donations. The response was overwhelming.
Just three months later, in April 2010, Kim founded People In Crisis United, to be known as P.I.C.U., an acronym also shared by the unit where Kim worked.
By fundraising in the community and forging partnerships with various organizations, Kim has successfully been able to hold true to P.I.C.U.’s mission. Over the past seven years, the organization has impacted the lives of hundreds of patients at Holtz Children’s.
For years, P.I.C.U. organized monthly family dinner nights for Holtz Children’s patients and their families. Anyone and everyone was welcome, including the siblings of patients and other extended family members. Hot, home-cooked meals like tacos and lasagna would be served in a group setting, where patients got a break from their hospital room and families got to know one another and offer each other support.
The largest annual meal Kim’s Pediatric Palliative Care team and the Child Life Specialist team plan is on Thanksgiving. She personally makes sure that every hospitalized child receives an invitation to a full turkey dinner with all the fixings. At the celebration, patients are given donated toys, handmade get well cards and placemats made by local schoolchildren. The parents all receive donated Winn Dixie gift cards for groceries.
“Nobody wants to be in the hospital, especially on a holiday,” said Kim. “So it was important to me to make sure that our families have something to do on those special days, where they can all be together enjoying themselves.”
Another of Kim’s ambitious undertakings was the first-ever Holtz Children’s Hospital Prom, held in April 2014 at Jackson Memorial Hospital. Kim partnered with high school students at her alma mater, Miami Country Day School, to plan the event. Now in its fourth year, the Holtz Children’s Prom is scheduled for April 21, 2017 at Jackson Memorial Hospital.
Kim organizes a clothing drive to collect gowns and suits and sets up a makeshift clothing store inside of the hospital for patients to come and “shop” for their evening attire. The teenage girls get their hair and makeup done for free by professional stylists, while the boys are treated to fresh haircuts by local barbers.
“Prom is one of the most memorable events in the life of a high school student – and many of our teenage patients are too sick to even go to school, much less prom,” Kim said. “We wanted to give them the experience of prom, and a chance to make lifelong memories.”
Through the halls of Holtz Children’s, Kim is known as a “doer.” To her, anything is possible – and she will not stop until she literally makes dreams come true.
To meet Kim Juanico is to become immediately inspired by her and her unending commitment to Holtz Children’s and the patients she helps.
“When you become a nurse, you already have that quality in you to love and be compassionate,” Kim said. “Nursing will burn you out and get you exhausted. You just have to remind yourself what the true meaning of this career is – it’s about providing love and support to people who need it the most.”
To read more of our Nothing Random About Our Kindness employee features celebrating Random Acts of Kindness Week, click here.