{"id":80550,"date":"2023-12-18T16:15:49","date_gmt":"2023-12-18T21:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/?p=80550"},"modified":"2024-01-09T08:34:11","modified_gmt":"2024-01-09T13:34:11","slug":"patient-gifts-a-piece-of-home-to-indigenous-cancer-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/healthy-tomorrows\/patient-gifts-a-piece-of-home-to-indigenous-cancer-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Patient gifts a piece of home to Indigenous Cancer Program"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jennifer Burmingham, a patient at the Indigenous Cancer Program<\/a> at The Ottawa Hospital since June 2023, hopes a special piece of interactive art will help remind Inuit patients of home.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jennifer commissioned a customized, resin-cast checkerboard and pieces by friend and artist Tania Scott. The board and its pieces were cast with flowers handpicked by Jennifer and Tania on Baffin Island. The flowers \u2013 including Nunavut\u2019s floral emblem, purple saxifrage \u2013 grow throughout Nunavut and are detailed on cards which accompany the game.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s to bring a piece of home,\u201d says Jennifer. \u201cIt\u2019s an actual piece of the land that was there before we picked it and [patients] can see it. That makes a big difference.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Photo
Jennifer Burmingham in the Wind\u00f2c\u00e0ge Room at the General Campus the day she gifted the checkerboard to the Indigenous Cancer Program.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A long way from home <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Jennifer has been receiving treatment for metastasized breast cancer at The Ottawa Hospital since she was flown by MedEvac to Ottawa on June 2. In all, she spent 22 days at The Ottawa Hospital, 40 days in a hotel and 20 days at Larga Baffin, a lodge for Nunavut residents staying in Ottawa for medical care. She didn\u2019t go home again until late August, making it the longest time she had every spent away from home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interactive art brings hope <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Jennifer wanted to gift the interactive artwork to The Ottawa Hospital after noticing a gap in Inuit representation in artwork and cultural items. Checkers is a familiar game that patients and families can play with if they\u2019re bored. The cards detailing each of the flowers used add an option to play a matching game. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt may bring out a bit of positivity if they\u2019re not doing so well and they see a piece of home,\u201d she says. \u201cIt brings out hope that \u2018I could see that again.\u2019  It makes a big difference when you can see a piece of home when you\u2019re away from home.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jennifer is now completing chemotherapy in Ottawa and hopes to return home soon.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can view Tania Scott\u2019s art at on tundramoon.ca<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

About The Ottawa Hospital\u2019s journey of reconciliation <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Ottawa Hospital is working with First Nation, Inuit and M\u00e9tis partners to better ensure all campuses are reflective of the people and territories we serve. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Resources for Indigenous patients and families<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indigenous partnerships and The Ottawa Hospital\u2019s journey of reconciliation<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inuit patients can now see and hold a piece of their traditional territory in the Wind\u00f2c\u00e0ge Room at the General Campus, thanks to an interactive gift donated to The Ottawa Hospital by a cancer patient. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":80551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[13,424,381],"class_list":["post-80550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthy-tomorrows","tag-cancer","tag-indigenous-health","tag-patient-experience"],"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80550","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\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}