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Services

Mail & Flowers
Mail and flowers are welcome in most areas. Flowers (silk or live) and plants, however, are not allowed in the Critical Care Unit.

Newton Medical Center volunteers deliver mail daily and flowers several times a day. Mail arriving after your dismissal will be forwarded to your home. Flowers arriving after your dismissal will be handled by the florist.

Television & Radio
The control for the television and radio is in the bed rail panel. Remote control is also available for your convenience.

Newspapers
All patients receive The Newton Kansan daily, except Sundays, courtesy of The Newton Kansan and local businesses. Other papers are available at the main entrance and the Emergency entrance.

Chaplain
Chaplaincy services are available to you while a patient at Newton Medical Center. Our Chaplain or On-Call Chaplain can provide you and/or your family with:

Pastoral visitation
Spiritual counseling
Grief support
Blessings of praise and thanksgiving

Some of the more usual services our chaplains can assist with include:

Contacting your local pastor
Bringing spiritual resources to bear toward your healing
Arranging for sacraments
Considering medical/ethical decisions

Chaplains are available 24 hours a day to help meet the spiritual needs of patients and their families. Patients and families in crisis situations may call the hospital switchboard and ask for the chaplain.

Our Chapel is located in the main hallway. Bibles and devotional guides are available in the chapel, in your room, and in the waiting areas. Your own clergyperson is also welcome to visit you at any time.

Advance Directives
Your Right to Make Choices
It is your right to accept or refuse medical care. Illness or life-threatening injury can happen any time, without warning.

Stating your choices for your health care before there is a need will help your family by easing the responsibility and stress of making difficult decisions and will also help your physician by providing guidelines for your care.

The Patient Self-Determination Act of 1990 requires hospitals to provide written information to adult patients concerning their right, under state laws, to make decisions concerning their medical care.

This includes not only the right to accept or refuse medical or surgical treatment, but also the right to formulate advance directives.

What Are Advance Directives?
Advance directives are communication tools. They are documents written in advance of serious illness that state your choices for health care, or name someone to make those choices for you if you become unable to make decisions.

Such decisions may include refusing treatment, being placed on life-support equipment, and/or stopping treatment at a point you choose. Advance directives may also include requesting life-sustaining treatment, if you so desire.

There are several types of advance directives. The two most often mentioned are a living will and a durable power of attorney for health care. Kansas statutes recognize both documents.

Living Will
A living will contains your instructions and your wishes regarding your health care should you have a terminal illness. The Kansas living will is found in a statute titled The Natural Death Act. The statute allows an adult to state his or her desire to have lifesustaining procedures withheld or withdrawn and therefore be permitted to die naturally with only the administration of medication or procedures for comfort care.
For the living will to be effective, two physicians must personally examine you and determine that you have a terminal condition. The physicians must agree that death will occur whether or not lifesustaining procedures are utilized, and if used would serve only to artificially prolong the dying process. The form is not effective if you are pregnant. Two adults who are not related to you, not financially responsible for you, and who will not inherit from you must witness your signature on your living will.

Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care
A durable power of attorney for health care allows another person the right to make medically related decisions for you if you become unable to do so at any time, not just at the end of life.

The person you designate becomes known as your "agent" and should be someone who knows your goals and values and whom you trust. Your proxy should not be your doctor or nurse or anyone who takes care of you unless he/she is related to you by blood or marriage. Your agent is allowed to:

1) give consent, refuse consent or withdraw consent to any care, treatment, service or procedure to maintain, diagnose or treat a physical or mental condition; 2) make decisions about organ donation, autopsy, and disposition; 3) make all necessary arrangements for hospitalization, physicians or other care; 4) request and receive all information and records and sign releases for your records.

You may choose specific powers your agent will have and you may give instructions about any treatment you want to have or wish to avoid, such as surgery or artificial nutrition and hydration.

Your agent and health care provider must follow your expressed wishes. They must also respect your wishes as stated in your living will. And unless limited, the durable power of attorney for health care allows your agent to make decisions about withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment in all types of illnesses. The durable power of attorney is not limited to terminal illness.

To be effective, the durable power of attorney for health care must be notarized or witnessed by two adults who are not related to you and who will not inherit from you.

How to make Advance Directives
If you would like assistance in completing advance directives you may tell your nurse or case manager that you need help with advance directives. They will make the necessary arrangements. Services include providing the forms, witnessing, notarizing, and photocopying.

You may also request the chaplain to visit with you if you wish to discuss your medical/ethical decisions prior to completing your advance directives.
If you are not currently a patient, Newton Medical Center still offers services to help you complete the forms. You may call NMC’s Chaplain at (316) 804-6022 to make a personal appointment.

Forms may also be obtained from the following source:

Kansas Health Ethics
5900 E. Central, Suite 101
Wichita, KS 67208
(316) 684-1991
www.kansashealthethics.org

Through advance directives you can make legally valid decisions about your medical treatment. Advance Directives can be changed or revoked at any time by replacing them with new updated documents.

If you have additional questions about Advance Directives, contact Newton Medical Center’s Chaplain at (316) 804-6022.

Case Management
Services provided by case managers include planning for care following a hospital stay and referral to community resources. Your physician or nurse can arrange for you to talk with a case manager.

Drug Information
Information about your medications is available in English and Spanish. Let your nurse or pharmacist know if you want information, or have questions regarding your medications.

Notary Public
A notary public is usually available Monday through Friday from 8 am to 5 pm. If you need a notary public, check with your nurse.

Patient Education
Educational materials and/or one-on-one education is available, based on your needs. Health education is customized to your personal needs in coordination with your physician and nurse.

Care Review/Discharge Planning
We want to help your doctor make sure the care you receive at Newton Medical Center is right for your needs. For this purpose, we have developed a utilization review program.

A case manager will review your case when you are admitted and then for every two or three days. The case manager will work with you, your doctor and your family to ensure that any necessary plans and arrangements have been made when you are ready to leave the hospital.

You may be returning to your own home...moving to the NMC Post-Acute Care Nursing Unit...or obtaining other services to continue your health care outside the hospital.

Case managers can assist you with plans for services such as home health care, Meals On Wheels, nursing home placement and more.

If you have any questions about this process, ask your doctor. Or you may have your nurse ask a case manager to visit with you.

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