One stop shopping at Health Emporium

by Peter Healy
GreenwichTime.com

Norwalk Hospital's new Health Emporium goes beyond the usual hospital gift shop fare like greeting cards, candy and magazines.

The 1,800-square-foot facility stocks products such as compression stockings, spine supports, canes and walkers and chemotherapy items such as turbans. Its grand opening is scheduled today at 11 a.m.

Trina Muro, manager of food and nutrition services at Norwalk Hospital, said she bought a high-quality eyebrow and eyelash replenisher at the emporium for her mother, who is undergoing chemotherapy at the hospital for non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Cancer patients often lose their head and facial hair.

"I would have had to order the replenisher on the Internet and have it shipped from Italy," Muro said, adding that it makes her mother "feel like her old self."

The emporium also sells baby slings, breast-feeding and infant safety products, body creams and yoga mats. It has a 12-seat, 1,000-square-foot cafe that serves cappuccino, espresso and latte beverages, sandwiches, wraps, salads and soups. The facility also contains a waiting room for the hospital's retail pharmacy.

"We are the first hospital in Connecticut to have a medically based retail component (besides a pharmacy)," said Paul Mortensen, director of retail for Norwalk Hospital. "It provides products that physicians and staff request for their patients in the most convenient method possible."

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