Rochelle Community Hospital celebrated National Wear Red Day on Feb. 6. February is American Heart Month, and RCH staff wore red to raise heart health awareness and celebrate the heart-related services it provides the community.
RCH CEO Karen Tracy said the hospital’s heart-related services include its primary care physicians, multi-specialty clinic, ultrasound services, and emergency and cardiac rehabilitation departments.
“For a small critical access hospital, we really have a robust program of heart services,” Tracy said. “We are prepared to help the community with those needs. And if someone’s needs exceed what we can do, we can get them to a place that can service them.”
Janis Astle is RCH’s emergency department manager. She and her staff work with patients that come in with emergent cardiac issues, such as heart attacks or strokes. RCH serves as a critical access hospital in the rural area for its emergency patients.
Astle said RCH sees the same types of critical patients that large hospitals see, and it’s adept at its role of stabilizing, diagnosing and linking up to a tertiary facility if patients need specialized care.
“They can feel comfortable coming here because our nurses are amazing, experienced and smart,” Astle said. “They know what to do. We’re very lucky as a community to have RCH. We save lives. We save lives all the time. People will come here knowing they don’t feel quite right and they try to talk themselves into it being nothing. We take it seriously and we find things out that are going on with them that they don’t realize. And we save lives.”
Heart issues are among the RCH emergency department’s more common complaints, Astle said. RCH ED personnel receive regular, specialized training on advanced cardiac life support. Women experiencing heart issues can show symptoms that are different from men.
Men suffering from heart attacks will get chest pain going to their left shoulder and arm, while women can experience shortness of breath with pain lower down in their upper abdomen or just weakness or fatigue. RCH staff is prepared to recognize and address those issues, Astle said.
RCH Nurse Practitioner Laurie Whelchel treats a lot of patients with hypertension and hyperlipidemia, and works with them on things they can do, such as exercising and eating right to prevent strokes.
Whelchel advised the community to exercise daily and practice a healthy diet of more fish, veggies and fresh fruit and less processed, sugary and carbohydrate foods to ensure positive heart health.
“My goal is to keep patients out of the hospital,” Whelchel said. “Some come in with things like congestive heart failure or stroke-like symptoms. I used to work in the ICU and ED, so I’ve seen a lot of patients with heart issues. As a provider, I feel it’s very important to make sure blood pressures are within goal to live a healthy life.”
Janine Sobin works as an infection control nurse at RCH. Patients can have infections that go systemic and become sepsis, which can affect heart function. When a patient comes in with an infectious condition like pneumonia, it’s impacting their heart and lungs, said.
“I think our general public needs education on how many things can impact their heart,” Sobin said. “I don’t think that it’s discussed enough. Keeping our immune system and body healthy decreases chronic disease. And heart disease is a chronic disease. My work gives me personal satisfaction that I can help patients increase their quality of life.”
National Wear Red Day on Feb. 6 was special for more than one reason for RCH. Employees were thinking of longtime hospital employee Linda Daub, who died in August 2025. She worked for 40 years at RCH in registration and always wore a red dress on National Wear Red Day.
“It’s really important that staff pull together for things like this,” Tracy said. “We encourage each other by showing up. I love seeing the crowd and that everybody likes to participate. It’s that family feeling that we have here.”