Foster Grandparent Celebrates 13 Years at Bellevue

Although it has been 13 years since Gloria Calderon held the two-pound baby girl who was the first child she cared for as a Foster Grandparent, she remembers her well - the infant weighed just two pounds and the nurses named her Stephanie. "Her mother was only 14 years old. She visited her child in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit a few times, but that was all. We never saw her father. We cared for her until the age of five months when a foster home was found," Gloria recalls.

As a Foster Grandparent on the Inpatient Pediatric Unit of Bellevue Hospital Center, Gloria holds babies, reads and plays with children and helps parents cope with their youngster's hospitalization. She's there every Monday through Friday from eight-thirty in the morning to one in the afternoon. She joined New York City's Foster Grandparent Program, which pairs able retirees with nonprofits in need, when she retired. "I was bored," she recalls. "I didn't want to sit around with all the old ladies watching people coming and going."

Stephen Campbell, Child Life Specialist, had many wonderful things to say about Gloria's involvement. Patients' mothers are relieved to see Gloria because it gives them a break -- to care for siblings at home, to take a nap or to deal with their own feelings about their children's illnesses. Stephen added that many young and inexperienced mothers learn ways to play with their babies and stimulate them by watching and mirroring Gloria with the babies.

Many patients on the Inpatient Pediatrics Unit get well and go home; however, the reality is that some do not. Stephen remarked about Gloria's strength in working with the later group. "Gloria has worked with patients who have died, yet she still rocks and loves them until the end. She doesn't put a child aside just because he or she is dying."

If need more: (A mother of two, grandmother of three and great-grandmother of one, parenting comes naturally to Gloria. Whether she is changing bed linens for the short-staffed nursing team or serving as an unofficial interpreter for Spanish-speaking patients, Gloria is always a delight.)

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