Rebecca Hamilton works as the health services director of Catalina Springs Memory Care, an assisted living facility caring for elderly patients suffering from various ailments. In her spare time, she volunteers to help foster felines looking for a new home – it’s something that brings her a great sense of achievement and happiness.
By chance, she realised that there was a way to combine her work with her passion project by getting the Catalina Springs Memory Care to work in partnership with the Pima Animal Care Center (PACC) to help nurse orphaned kittens back to full health with the help of animal loving patients at the facility.
The shelter thought it was a brilliant idea, and now residents at the facility help nurse the furry felines by botting feeding, cuddling and playing with them.
Peaches and Turtle were the first two kittens to feature in the program, weighing just seven ounces each they were in need of some loving care and attention – something the residents were all too happy to offer!
After a month, each kitten was well on their way to optimal health having gained weight, meaning they will soon be ready to be adopted. PACC say that without the care and help from the elderly patients, the kittens wouldn’t have made it to this point.
To some, it may seem peculiar at first: Residents who are in need of around-the-clock care themselves, given the task to care for these young kittens,” Catalina Springs Memory Care Executive Director Sharon Mercer said a press release.
“But there are skills, emotions, and needs that do not just leave a person with Dementia or Alzheimer’s. The desire to give love and receive love remains. The kittens have given us the opportunity to nurture this human condition that lies in each and every one of our residents.”
Pima Animal Care Center: Website | Facebook | Twitter
Catalina Springs Memory Care: Website | Facebook | Twitter
