Healing rarely happens alone.
Behind every patient is a family: the loved ones who wait, worry, encourage and hope. At FMOL Health, we don’t see family as a visitor to the healing process. We see family as part of it.
That belief runs through everything we do across Louisiana and Mississippi. It shapes the people who serve in our hospitals. It guides how we welcome loved ones into care decisions. And it takes physical form in the spaces we build so families can stay close when it matters most. Here’s how that commitment comes to life.
A Family-Oriented Place to Work and Serve
The value of family doesn’t begin at the bedside. It begins in the people who choose this work, and often, they choose it together.
Across our health system, generations serve side by side. At FMOL Health | St. Dominic, Darryl Gilmore has spent nearly three decades in compliance, while his son Kyle followed his own path into the operating room as a surgical nurse. Different roles, shared purpose.
At FMOL Health | St. Francis, Phillip Hays passed down a strong work ethic to his son Luke, now a patient transporter learning the hospital from the inside out. For both of them, crossing paths in the hallway is a daily gift.
In Acadiana, Dr. Lewis Hill has helped deliver generations of babies at FMOL Health | Our Lady of Lourdes Women’s & Children’s Hospital. Today, his daughter Grace works on the same halls as a Child Life specialist, comforting children and families through their most vulnerable moments, making it a family practice.
The legacy continues in nursing, too. Lorraine Zinnerman spent 36 years caring for patients at St. Francis. As she prepared to retire, her daughter Bonnie Garrett stepped onto the same telemetry floor, carrying forward her mother’s example of compassion.
And in the NICU at Our Lady of Lourdes Women’s & Children’s Hospital, neonatologist Dr. Amy Zeringue works alongside her mother, Effie Waguespack, a retired teacher who volunteers as a cuddler, holding, soothing and loving the tiniest patients when their parents can’t be there.
These stories share a simple truth. The same devotion that draws families to serve together is the devotion they bring to every patient they touch.
Family Belongs in the Healing Process
If family shapes the people who care, it also belongs in the care itself.
Too often, healthcare can treat loved ones as bystanders who sit in waiting rooms and receive updates. We believe something different. Families know things no chart can capture. They notice changes early. They comfort in ways medicine can’t. They help patients feel safe, seen and understood.
That’s why family-centered care matters so much to us. It means welcoming loved ones into conversations, honoring their questions and treating them as partners in the healing journey. When families are informed and involved, trust grows. Communication improves. And patients feel the difference.
When we care for the patient, we care for the family too, because the two can’t truly be separated.
Spaces Built for Families
A philosophy only matters if you can see it. Across FMOL Health, family-centered care is built into the very spaces where healing happens.
At Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Hospital in Baton Rouge, the Hogs for the Cause Family Support Home offers families a place of respite during a child’s active treatment. Funded by generous donations, it provides temporary housing at no cost, so parents can focus on their child’s healing instead of the financial and emotional burdens that come with serious illness.
In Acadiana, the Ronald McDonald Family Room at Our Lady of Lourdes Women’s & Children’s Hospital gives families a “home away from home” just steps from their child’s bedside. As the first of its kind in Louisiana, the room offers sleeping quarters, a kitchen, showers, laundry and quiet space to rest, so loved ones can recharge without leaving their child’s side.
Families in Northeast Louisiana find that same comfort at FMOL Health | St. Francis. On the seventh floor, near the NICU and PICU, the Ronald McDonald House Family Room offers a calm retreat where families can eat, shower and rest during long days of testing and treatment, with overnight suites for those who live far from home.
At Our Lady of Lourdes Women’s & Children’s, our commitment grew even deeper with a transformative NICU expansion. The unit added 19 private family suites, increasing capacity to 60 beds and giving parents 24/7 access to their babies. Each suite includes space to sleep, a recliner for skin-to-skin bonding and a private bathroom, creating an environment where families can stay close around the clock during their baby’s most critical days.
These spaces aren’t extras. They’re proof that keeping families close is central to how we care.
When Families Are Supported, Patients Are Too
From the care spaces built to keep loved ones close, to the teams who welcome families as true partners in healing, one belief holds it all together: family is essential to the care we provide.
At FMOL Health, family is more than who we care for. It is part of how we care. When we surround patients with the people they love and support those loved ones with compassion, we honor the whole person and the whole family.
That’s not an add-on to excellent care. It’s at the very heart of it. And it’s a promise we’re privileged to keep in every community we serve.
