MIDDLETOWN — Access to health care is easy to take for granted in the United States. It took watching a loved one die for Yonathan Kebede to decide he needed to get in the field to try to make a difference.

Born in Ethiopia, Kebede’s father was killed while serving in the military when he was 14. His aunt decided to help the family by adopting him and his older sister and taking them to the U.S. While he had to leave his mother, sister and brother behind, Kebede said he was grateful for the opportunity.

“Because Dad died we didn’t have enough support at the house and the way (my aunt) saw it was she could provide us the fish, or she could show us how to fish. So she brought us over here,” Kebede said.

But as Kebede, 26, can tell you, life in the United States can make you complacent, taking for granted all of the comforts so many in other parts of the world live and die without. As an undergraduate student at Ohio State University studying engineering, it took a dramatic incident to push him to his ultimate path in life.

Kebede was just 21 when he received word that his mother, whom he had only seen once since leaving Ethiopia, died of an illness Kebede now believes was related to kidney failure. But the direct cause, he said, was lack of access to competent medical treatment.

“She would go to one clinic and they told her one thing and she’d go to another one and they’d give her something else,” Kebede said.

Against advice, he switched his studies to health sciences and eventually decided on a management concentration. After an extensive fellowship with Premier Health Partners, Kebede now works as the business manager of nursing operations at Atrium Medical Center.

A person whom co-workers such as Marketing Director Wendy Parks call “infectious,” Kebede is cheerful in the role he has at the hospital inputting data that can help daily operations run more smoothly and stay fiscally fit.

It’s information such as how to better use the hospital's “sitters” — workers who stay in rooms with high-risk patients when family members are away — that Kebede said he is helping make a difference in the hospital. It’s also his initial step into making a difference in the health care field.

“The way I see it is this position lends me the opportunity to learn a lot about nursing which is the core of the system,” he said. “This isn’t something I was looking for, but it’s a stepping stone to the next thing.”

Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2843 or jheffner@coxohio.com.