Staff nurse Demi Peers and HCA Deanne Sidall with David Brown, the District Charity Steward for Ashton & Mossley, taking delivery of a box of teddy bears at Tameside Hospital Children’s Unit. East Lancashire Freemasons regularly give ‘Teddies for Loving Care’ to young patients suffering from trauma, injury or illness as part of a long standing initiative.
Vicky Carruthers, Health play specialist at Tameside commented that “These bears will be given to children attending the Emergency department and the children’s ward who may need to have invasive procedures carried out during their stay. The bears are amazing and will bring so much joy to the children. All of the staff would like to say a big thank you to David for this generous donation”
Aside from helping medical staff to start conversations with young patients they can be used to explain what treatments and procedures may be carried out. The children get to take the Teddy bears home, when they leave hospital, continuing to help them to stay cheerful during their recovery.
Over the years Freemason have been supporting this international project which has distributed over a million teddy bears to hospitals with tens of thousands being given by east Lancashire Freemasons to East Lancashire Hospitals.
Report from Bruce Robbins