“I grew up in the Detroit area, went in the Air Force in 1986, was stationed in Oscoda, and when I got out, I thought, ‘Well, what do I want to do with my life?’ I decided I wanted to go to nursing school, and so I stayed up in the area, went to Alpena Community College to start and then to Kirtland and got my nursing license and stayed up in the area. I worked in Standish for a lot of years, migrated to North Carolina for a few, and then ended up back in the Detroit area. And this incredible job at McLaren Bay Special Care came open in November of 2022, and I got a job offer, and I decided to come up here, and I'm so happy I did.
I knew Bay City, and I liked Bay City. When I was in the Air Force, there was nothing to do in Oscoda, so all of us GIs would come down to Bay City and Saginaw to hang out, so I knew the area well. My dad also lived here when he retired, and I thought Bay City was very cool. And when I got the job in January and came up here, man, it’s just exploded compared to what I remember being, especially the downtown area. My wife and I live in the Jennison building, right next to Wenonah Park. We can sit on our balcony, watch the fireworks, or listen to the music coming from the park. It’s like living on vacation.
“Bay Special Care is a subsidiary of McLaren, and it's a 31 bed hospital, and we take patients from local hospitals and help get them to a point where they can either go home or get to a lower level of care. Our average length of stay is 25 to 30 days, where in a hospital, average length of stay might be three to five, or in the ICU, maybe up to ten. We follow Joint Commission standards, just like a hospital, and it's a wonderful place. Our staffing ratios are very good. We give very specialized care: specializing in things like complex respiratory diseases, patients on ventilators, and complex wound care that typically cannot be given in a rehab center or in a nursing home.
It's like a family. We have individuals who have been working there since the day it opened 25 years ago. And our staff are very engaged, building bonds with patients because they're there for so long. They build relationships with the families and their loved ones, and the staff is very committed, and it's a wonderful place, and I'm very honored to be working there.
Back when I worked for Select Medical is when I fell in love with Long Term Acute Care. I just fell in love with it because we get to build bonds with your patients: you’re taking care of them for 25, 30 days, up to 60 days sometimes. When this job opportunity came open and I came up here to meet everybody, I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, these people are wonderful.’ I walked into a place where I didn't have to fix a broken culture, and it was just a very wonderful facility.
To celebrate Hospital Week, McLaren Bay Region brought back a tradition: Bed Races. There was a fun little parade with the Bay City Central High School Band and mascots from the Saginaw Spirit, and then four teams made themed hospital beds, wore costumes, and faced off in a tournament, racing up and down Mulholland right outside the cafeteria. I was on the leadership team, and we're all very competitive. We wanted to give it 100% effort, you know what I mean? We were in to win it.
The first race was a photo finish. I think that the team that beat us won because they had a palm tree on their bed and the leaf was just over the line.
After that first heat, I felt a little winded, because I'm not used to going from zero to 100 miles an hour like that. The second race was maybe five minutes later after the first race, and I think we won that one by a pretty good margin.
I felt good about winning, but I was really having a hard time catching my breath. I went over by a picnic table, and actually went down on my knees trying to catch my breath. I just couldn’t do it and was getting pretty scared.
At that point, I should have walked right over to the ER, but I don't even know if I could have made it. Then I remember seeing this face, my coworker, Julie, who came over and asked me, ‘Are you okay?’
I said, ‘No, I can't breathe.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, and that's the last thing I remember.
I’m told that when they put me on the ground, I was blue and grey. Everyone there responded—grabbing an AED, doing compressions, and getting me to the emergency room—and saved my life.
I'm forever indebted to them. I have a bond with these people now, forever. I experienced McLaren’s competent care in action. They saved my life. All the care I received, from outside on the ground to the cath lab, was top notch and it wasn't because I'm ‘Jeff who works there’. I’ve worked in many hospitals, and these people do what they do because they care. And the care there is, bar none, the best. Julie gave me a list of everybody that helped me, probably 11 names, and I sent messages to all of those people to thank them.
In that moment, my last thoughts were, ‘I'm not going to see my wife and daughter again’. That's a terrible feeling, so my biggest encouragement is to take care of yourself. You only have one life, you know?
Experiences like this show you that life is very fragile, and that you need to take care of yourself. Eat healthy, live healthy, exercise, get those regular follow-ups with your physicians, and if you feel something's not right physically, you need to listen to your body and respond to it.
I'm gracious for everybody that took care of me. Again, it goes to show you the people that I work with, their compassion, their professionalism, and what they do, and that speaks volumes about McLaren as an organization. I'm so thankful that I was working at McLaren and I happened to be there that day, because this could have happened to me at the gym, could have happened to me driving, you know what I mean? So I was at the right place at the right time, and I'm forever indebted and gracious to the people I work with.”
- Jeff Robinson, President and CEO of Bay Special Care
