EAST NORRITON, PA - It was over video communication that the Spitko daughters said goodbye to their father.
"It was a relief to be there with my dad when he passed," explains Michele Rouco, Spitko's daugher, "to know that he wasn’t alone and that we were all with him."
"We had some sense of connection," says Spitko's daughter Tina, "because unfortunately, we aren’t physically able to be there."
81 year old Donald Spitko passed away from complications surrounding COVID-19 on April 20th. The Marine veteran from Montgomery County spent 28 days on a ventilator inside Einstein Medical Center in East Norriton where two of his daughters work as nurses. But despite that, a strict no visitor policy for Coronavirus patients, kept Spitko from his family in his final days.
"I had to go the other way down the hallway and around so that I didn’t have to go past where my dad was because it was hard," Michele tells PBS39 News Tonight reporter, K.C. Lopez, "It’s heartbreaking to know that he’s that close and you’re not able to go in there at all."
Tammi, who is also a nurse at Einstein Medical says, "I knew my dad was only eight doors away and I could see his name on the board and I couldn’t do anything other than see his name on the board...and then it was the saddest thing when I went and his name wasn’t up on the board."
In his memory, the Spitko family launched a fundraiser to provide iPads to ICU patients like their father, battling COVID-19 alone and away from loved ones.
"We wanted to raise money to buy iPads for other families" explains Spitko's daughter Sharon, " And not just COVID patients, other families that can’t go visit their loved ones who are dying in the hospital--not even dying, those who can’t go visit them."
"We were actually able to see our dad and see if there was a response from our dad and we were able to feel like somehow we were there even though we weren’t there," Tammi tells Lopez, "So that’s why we started the whole iPad Gofundme because that’s the way we felt closest to our dad especially in the last few hours that we had with him."
So far, they’ve raised over 11 thousand dollars...
"We’ll give the initial iPads to Einstein Montgomery, where my dad spent his final days and then, once we know they have enough for their patients--because we can only give so many that have you know, we need nurses to facilitate the iPads with the patients," explains Sharon, "So then we’ll give to the surrounding area hospitals as well. We just want to keep giving back."
Another one of Spitko's daughters, Tina, says, "It was our dad’s last several hours of life and we just want everybody to have the opportunity at any given time, to be able to Facetime with their loved ones and not have to worry about there not being an iPad, they’re not being charged, so that you have several within the department that everybody in the course of a day has the opportunity to facetime at least once."
Allowing the Spitkos to donate iPads inscribed with a message on the back and inspire others to stay #SpitkoStrong.
