{"id":29618,"date":"2017-08-30T10:23:43","date_gmt":"2017-08-30T14:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/?p=29618\/"},"modified":"2020-09-25T15:20:34","modified_gmt":"2020-09-25T19:20:34","slug":"local-volunteers-help-meet-patients-basic-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/healthy-tomorrows\/local-volunteers-help-meet-patients-basic-needs\/","title":{"rendered":"Local volunteers help meet patients\u2019 basic needs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Local volunteers Pat Porter (left) and Doris Reed regularly donate clothing and toiletries for Emergency Department patients at the Civic Campus.<\/em><\/p>\n

Rushing to the Emergency Department is a stressful experience for patients. In most cases, there isn\u2019t time to consider what they\u2019ll need while at the hospital or when they\u2019re discharged.<\/p>\n

Fortunately for patients in the Civic Campus Emergency Department, Pat Porter and Doris Reed are thinking about those needs for them. Over the past few years, the women have donated their time and money to deliver in-demand items like soap, shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrushes, combs, underwear, socks and clean used clothing.<\/p>\n

Their kind initiative began when Porter\u2019s daughter-in-law, Civic Campus Emergency Room nurse Rebecca Briscoe, asked one year that, instead of giving her Christmas gifts, her family donate toiletries to the Emergency Department. Porter and her family happily obliged, but their charity didn\u2019t end with the holiday season.<\/p>\n

After several months of donating smaller items she bought on sale, using her own money, Porter found a way to expand her offerings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was told that the hospital needed clean clothing for discharged patients,\u201d said Porter. \u201cSometimes patients are flown in from elsewhere and don\u2019t have family or friends to bring them a change of clothes. Or they\u2019re discharged in the early hours of the morning, or they\u2019re homeless and don\u2019t have clean clothes.\u201d<\/p>\n

With that in mind, Porter asked Doris Reed, who volunteers as coordinator at the New-To-You Shop in Westboro\u2019s All Saints\u2019 Anglican Church, if the thrift store would consider donating surplus clothing to The Ottawa Hospital. Reed said it was \u201cexactly the kind of fit we\u2019re looking for\u201d and gladly joined Porter in making monthly deliveries to the Civic Campus Emergency Department.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe bring as much as the back seat and the trunk of the car will carry,\u201d said Reed.<\/p>\n

Briscoe praises the two women for their tireless work, including Porter\u2019s long hours searching for sales and discounts on toiletries, and Reed\u2019s endless efforts to sort, repair, clean and pack the clothing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it means a lot to our patients because they\u2019ve already had a lot of stress to deal with, and then they discover that somebody has donated the things they need out of the goodness of their heart,\u201d said Briscoe.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re glad to do it,\u201d said Porter, who also volunteers in the elementary school system. \u201cBut we can\u2019t take all the credit. We\u2019re meeting a need, but The Ottawa Hospital staff and volunteers look after collecting and distributing our donations. We\u2019re all working together to fill the need.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For several years, retirees Pat Porter and Doris Reed have donated their time and money to deliver in-demand items like soap, shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrushes, combs, new underwear and clean used clothing to the Civic Campus Emergency Department. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":29619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[177,480,184],"class_list":["post-29618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthy-tomorrows","tag-community-engagement","tag-compassion","tag-volunteers"],"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}