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Service with a Smiley Face: Former hospital executive, now a volunteer, works to cheer patients
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| David Kennedy photo Warren Betts, a retired health care executive, is a volunteer at Christian Hospital who greets patients with a sense of humor. Funny hats and Smiley Faces are part of his visit to patients' rooms. | ||
"Buttons" may be retired, but he's still not far from the surface when Warren R. Betts walks into a patient's room at Christian Hospital.
Two days a week, Betts, 79, a retired health care executive from Florissant, visits patients and staff as a volunteer. He's there as a representative from patient services to answer questions and help make patients comfortable.
He does his job with a sense of humor - abetted by his once-alter-ego, Buttons. Betts created Buttons, a Shriners clown, when he worked in Jefferson City.
"I tell them that 'I'm Warren Betts from patient relations, and I just came here to see how you're doing,'" Betts said last week during a conversation in the hospital cafeteria. "I tell them, 'I know you would rather be somewhere else.'"
One of the first things he does is hand them a business card with his name and a Smiley Face. The card says "Make It a Nice Day!"
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Betts is a study in Smiley Faces. He has them on a label of his suit coat and on his notebooks. He wears a Smiley Face tie. He hands out Smiley Face decals. And sometimes Betts wears his funny hat with an "E.T." doll on top and clown glasses.
He became a volunteer in 1994 because a retirement away from helping people wasn't for him, he said.
"I sat home for about a month," Betts said. "I was listening to music, reading books, but worse, I was eating. I came over here and volunteered a couple of days a week."
Now, when he comes to the hospital on Mondays and Tuesdays, he carefully looks at a patient list and begins working his way through different floors.
His visits also have a practical aspect. Patients often tell him about concerns and problems that they haven't told a nurse or doctor. Betts writes them down on a little red form and passes it on to the hospital staff.
"He's absolutely wonderful," said Lee Shields, coordinator of volunteer services for Christian Hospital and Betts' "boss."
Shields said Betts has been a dedicated volunteer for years at Christian as well as Shriners Hospitals for Children in St. Louis and Epworth Children's Home.
Shields said the hospital needs volunteers for all kinds of tasks ranging from manning the information desk, to transporting medications and escorting patients, to delivering flowers. Volunteer information is available at 314-653-5032.
Betts is no stranger to health care.
He retired in 1994 as a vice president for BJC Health Care, and he served as executive vice president for the Missouri Hospital Association and as an administrator at the Shriners Hospital here. He also was a hospital administrator in Washington, D.C., New York and Charlottesville, Va., before coming to Shriners in 1969.
"I'm comfortable here," Betts said. "A lot of volunteers aren't comfortable in hospitals."
Discomfort shouldn't stop retirees from becoming volunteers, he said.
"Take a little time, not very much, to unwind if you will and relax a bit," he said. "Then start looking for something where you can help others. ... It makes you feel so good."
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