“At Exceptional Community Hospital, we’re going to have those results the same day and doctors will be able to make decisions in a timely manner.” –BARBARA DUDIK HUERTA
HEALTH GUIDE
Huerta is a veteran, too. She served more than four years in the Army as a lab tech at the San Antonio Military Medical Center, a 1.5 million-square- foot facility that includes a state-of-the art burn unit. It’s the home of the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research Burn Center. “It is the only Level 1 trauma center in the Department of Defense,” Huerta said. “We were a hospital that got a lot of massively injured soldiers from downrange [Afghanistan and Iraq] that were coming to heal and get better. A lot of them were from burns.” Personal care Carmela Hamlett, a registered nurse at Exceptional Community Hospital, spent 14 years in the Army as a combat medic. Her title eventually morphed to health care specialist, but the job remained the same.
“I’m proud that we now have a hospital in the city of Maricopa to not only take care of a community that’s been underserved, but I live here,” said Huerta. “My kids live here. My husband is here. My parents live in Maricopa, along with two of my brothers. It’s nice to not only serve the community but my family.” An onsite lab offers Maricopans a quality of care not available anywhere else in the city. Any other office in the city must send lab work out to a contractor like LabCorp or SunQuest, which can’t deliver same-day results, Huerta said. About 90% of all health care decisions are made according to lab results. “At Exceptional Community Hospital, we’re going to have those results the same day and doctors will be able to make decisions in a timely manner,” Huerta said.
While the focus most of the time is on physical ailments, Hamlett also saw to the soldiers’ mental and emotional well-being. As part of one assignment, Hamlett was tasked with helping soldiers medically discharged from Afghanistan transition back into the civilian world. “Many were amputees, and others suffered traumatic brain injuries,” Hamlett said. Her job sometimes meant assisting families as they helped care for soldiers when they got home, getting them ready to attend school and prepare for the rest of their lives. “It’s definitely something different, especially for combat veterans,” Hamlett said. “They have a hard time grasping the concept of being a civilian. The camaraderie they’re used to as soldiers is gone once they become civilians and they’re left wondering, ‘What do I do now?’” Early in her Army career, Hamlett was stationed in Kuwait and had plans to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. “But it never happened,” she said. “There were always extenuating situations where I was ordered not to get on that plane. I just took it as a sign that if I went, bad things would have happened.” Instead, Hamlett drew other interesting assignments during her military career. The first was serving as health care support personnel for the Yuma-based Free Fall School. She also supported the Army’s parachute team that jumped in Arizona during the winters. Hamlett faced her fear of heights head-on when she jumped with the Golden
the wee hours of the morning, visiting every single person in the Army who got injured in that attack on the Pentagon,” McVeigh said. It was a process that spanned many nights and hospitals all over the Washington, D.C., metro area. “It was all for the patient,” McVeigh said. McVeigh said it’s a notion that remains with him to this day in his role at Maricopa’s lone hospital. “It’s not about us,” McVeigh said. “It’s about the patients we serve in each community where we operate. We want to provide the best care to them and to be good partners in those communities, regardless of whether it’s Maricopa, Yuma or Bullhead City.” That same dedication to community inspires Barbara Dudik Huerta, the hospital’s laboratory manager and technical consultant.
Barbara Dudik Huerta, the laboratory manager at Exceptional Community Hospital, takes pride in opening Maricopa’s first full-service hospital.
HG 4
Health Guide 2023
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