Maddie’s Place, Spokane’s neo-natal nursery for drug-addicted infants and their parents, has operated for more than three years with a patchwork of funding. Chief Executive Shaun Cross talks about working with the legislature this session to find permanent funding sources and how the nursery is exporting its care model to cities all over the country.
"The bottom line is this, the evidence and data that we've gathered...points to a new more effective model of care for infants and parents going through withdrawal after birth. Maddie's model is more effective than our current hospital-based model because the model of care impacts not only the infant but also the parents...
We can do it for about a third and take care of the mom also and her recovery and not have the infant go into the foster care system."
We’ll hear from Spokane medical resident Logan Patterson, who believes medical students need more instruction to help patients at the end of their lives.
"I think at the ideal situation, you would see it basically threaded throughout all four years of medical education...It should really be a combination of learning about different aspects of end of life, like advanced care planning, goals of care, that type of thing. Maybe seeing or having a couple simulated encounters with sort of actors that are pretending to be patients."
Eliza Billingham takes us to Spokane’s West Central Abbey, which will receive an infusion of cash to make some improvements, if it can raise some money from the community. A trio of artists are stepping in to help.
“There are places in West Central that are important and useful and meaningful. And the Abbey is one of the only ones that is all three. But it's not just a symbol either, right? It's a working symbol, right? They're doing good work for the soul. They're doing good work for the bodies of the neighborhood and the population that they serve. And the spirit that flows out of it comes back to it.”
