St. Mary's Lifeline Personal Response System is a service that offers elderly, disabled, or medically fragile persons access to medical services, 24 hours per day, providing them a sense of security and confidence to remain in their own homes.

Subscribers wear a lightweight, waterproof monitor, which links electronically to a communicator unit attached to their telephone. The monitor may be worn as a necklace, wristband, pinned to clothing or carried in a pocket, and the user can be as far away as 700 feet from the unit to send an alarm. At the first sign of trouble, subscribers simply push the personal help button, which sends an electronic message to St. Mary’s Switchboard where trained personnel immediately call back to find out the problem.

If the subscriber does not answer when called, hospital staff will contact relatives, friends, or neighbors who have agreed to serve as “responders.” The hospital will also notify the subscriber's physician.

Since its inception in 1981, St. Mary’s Lifeline program has aided over 1,200 residents in the Decatur area. For more information about St. Mary’s Lifeline, please call 464-2344.