Everyday Heroes
CCDPH is celebrating Everyday Heroes of the COVID-19 response. Everyday Heroes are people living, working, or volunteering in suburban Cook County who are helping each other during these extremely difficult times. To see more Everyday Heroes, please see this page.
Hero of the Week
Sue Hecht ensures hospitals have critical equipment and supplies
Sue Hecht, right, pictured with Dr. Elizabeth Regan, says that team work is essential both inside and outside her hospital.
Staff in the command center at Advocate Christ Medical Center, including Sue, wear masks and social distance.
Some heroes have been preparing for this pandemic for decades. Sue Hecht has been responding to COVID-19 almost non-stop since January, but she’s served in emergency planning roles at Advocate Christ Medical Center (ACMC) for over 25 years.
As the Region 7 Regional Health Care Coalition (RHCC) Disaster Coordinator, Sue has convened 12 regional hospitals to plan together. Since 2002, hospitals started working together so that they wouldn’t have to compete for resources during surges and emergencies.
Sue wears multiple hats. She also co-chairs the Advocate Aurora Emergency Preparedness Committee. At ACMC, Sue’s responsibility is to make sure everyone has what they need. This includes physicians and nurses, but also the staff preparing meals, building staff ensuring that there’s negative pressure in hospital rooms with COVID-19 patients, and the environmental services staff that are cleaning and disinfecting rooms.
The relationships she’s built over time – the ones that mean that everyone can call each other by their first name – are essential. “I’m like a cruise director,” Sue said jokingly.
Ann Faragoi, a close colleague at ACMC, says that this is Sue’s passion, “She works tirelessly to help patients, healthcare workers, EMS providers, and other health care facilities in the region.”
Sue brought together RHCC representatives from Regions 7, 8, 9 and 10 to unpack and distribute PPE supplies from the Strategic National Stockpile. Now, they meet regularly through virtual meetings to support one another and make sure each hospital has the necessary equipment and supplies.
“No one can do this alone,” Sue said. Thanks to Sue’s efforts, no one in Region 7 or ACMC has to.
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Updated June 22, 2020, 5:26 PM
