The Crocus Quilter’s Guild, based out of Dauphin, donated a quilt to each of the 24 patients in the Dialysis Unit at the Dauphin Regional Health Centre.
“As somebody who works in the hospital, I regularly see the Dialysis patients come in all the time. And it’s almost like a forgotten disease, no one really remembers them. But these people are dealing with this on a day to day basis, and it’s a long-term thing. So, we brought it back to the guild and said ‘you know what, there’s only 24 patients so why don’t we make it our goal to make the quilts and we can give them to the patients themselves and they are their own quilts. They are not part of the dialysis unit or anything. They belong to a person.”
President of the guild, Cindy Hamilton, says all 50 members of the group helped out with creating the quilts with everyone doing their part to complete the project.
Some members built the squares, while others put the squares together and then those larger blocks would be quilt together, and then others would bind them and put the label on them.
Because of privacy laws, the quilts were given to nurses at the hospital to hand out to the patients.
Hamilton says the people they’ve heard back from are really appreciative of their gifts.
“They were absolutely thrilled. They could not believe that we had done this and that they would get these quilts to keep. We received cards from a couple of them.”
“One of the patients brings their blanket with them, their quilt, every time they come for dialysis, so it’s every second day. She brings her quilt with her just because it means that much to her. One of them, that I know personally, was talking about hanging it on her wall and said because she didn’t want to use it. And I said ‘no, it’s to use. It’s washable and dryable you can use it.’ So she was just absolutely thrilled with it.”
There are plans to create a quilt for each new dialysis patient as they begin treatment going forward.
The group meets the first Thursday of the month at the Watson Art Centre beginning at 7, and they also have a sew day on one of the Saturday during the month that is great for those interested in learning how to sew.
