PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Two Temple University medical students spearheaded a mail-in ballot initiative at Temple Hospital.
Partners Amanda Pirola and Zach Pellis, fourth-year medical students, helped dozens of sick patients cast their votes last week for the midterm election.
“There were patients who said they were going to sign out of the hospital, leave, go vote and come back,” Pirola said.
They wanted to ensure that some of their sickest patients didn’t risk their lives leaving the hospital attempting to vote, so they organized a way to assist patients with turning in their mail-in ballots.
“We really just took the bill by the horns,” Pirola said.
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The couple looked into the logistics of it all, like types of permission and necessary forms, and “just jumped into action” Monday afternoon, Pirola added.
With the assistance of several fellow medical students, Pirola and Pellis helped their sickest patients first, working on the internal medicine floor with people who were hospitalized for one night to several weeks with heart failure, diabetes and COPD exacerbations.
They feel hospitalization should pose no limits to their civic duties.
“There was no reason why being hospitalized should keep anyone from casting their vote,” Pellis said.
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