Donated blankets for dialysis patients

[okarol]

POSTED ON Friday, May 01, 2009 AT 11:15PM
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Slice of Yakima: Donated blankets for dialysis patients

Yakima Herald-Republic

YAKIMA, Wash. -- They warmed their arms and legs -- and their hearts.

Five nursing students from Washington State University recently gave more than 250 blankets to patients at DaVita Yakima Dialysis Center.

The nursing students spent a day at the clinic -- as well as two other clinics in the Yakima Valley -- speaking with patients and shadowing nurses.

According to Sandy Moore, a nurse at DaVita Yakima Dialysis Center, the No. 1 thing the nursing students heard during their visits was patients were cold.

"This is one of the most prevalent side effects of dialysis," Moore says.

The students said they were so moved by the dialysis patients they felt compelled to do something. So they collected blankets for every dialysis patient.

"When they handed them out to our patients (last) Wednesday evening, they brought a lot of joy to our patients and staff," Moore says.

The students are: Karen Arreola, Kristen Berglin, Rigoberto Zepeda, Shana Schut and Meredith Shaw.

-- Adriana Janovich

http://www.yakimaherald.com/stories/2009/05/01/04-30-09-dialysis-slice

[monrein]

 This story reminded me of last Christmas at our unit when we walked in one day to find big shawls and small blankets draped up everywhere.  They were hand knitted by a group of Jewish women in a knitting club and one of the member's husband had been on dialysis.  We each got to pick one (or two if we wanted more coverage) and they were lovely.  Mine was longer than it was wide so it covered my whole body in the chair and was super soft and cuddly.  It had the name of the knitter on it and I called to thank her.  I still have it and love the colours...a mix of burgundy and deep purple.  Very thoughtful and so practical since they were small enough to fit in our personal container drawer thingies at the unit.

[willowtreewren]

You had personal drawers at your clinic?!?! Amazing. When my husband was doing dialysis in center, all the patients had to lug everything they wanted back and forth.

There certainly is a wide variation in clinics.

Aleta

[monrein]

We each had a big personal drawer but if we had anything extra we could keep it there too.  I had a big bag which held my own cozy blanket, a buckwheat pillow, an around the neck blow up pillow and that sat up on top of one of the sets of drawers.  In my drawer I had books of puzzles, novels and other books, a shawl, a basket they provided for my personal clamps, my own tourniquet provided by them, antiseptic cream, gauze etc...any supplies that were unopened but still good but not to be put back into general stores because I'd handled them.  I also kept some little snacks but nothing open or anything that could go bad or attract pests.  We could bring anything we wanted to eat and staff would microwave it for us and they served tea or coffee once each shift.  It was self-care so we each set up our own machines and programmed them but only three of us self-cannulated.  All things medical were done by nurses but we had two techs who stripped and cleaned machines and did little things that we might need.  We each had a phone and a small personal tv and there was wi-fi if you wanted to bring a laptop or something.  There was a central DVD player so if someone brought a movie, staff would put it in and ask others if they wanted to watch it also.  I thought it was a very good unit and I especially liked the fact that they encouraged independence and patient involvement in as many aspects of care as a patient could want.  This type of setup means significant savings for our health care system also since we were outside of a hospital and didn't need as high a staff to patient ratio as in the hospital setting.  We had no doctor on site but had clinic visits and blood work at least once a month but more if there were issues.  There were 12 chairs, three nurses, two techs, two maintenance guys, a charge nurse/director and a bigger boss/director who split her time with us and another satellite self-care centre.
PS.  I live in Toronto, Canada.

[MIbarra]

Wow.. Dialysis with "lockers." That would have been very nice when I was on dialysis so I wouldn't have had to lug everything back and forth!

[dwcrawford]

we have to lug ours back and forth.  funny, i asked just last night why there were no lockers.  answer: there's over 120 clients at each session....

What does self cannulated mean?  If it means stick yourself, forget it.

[monrein]

Yes, it does mean stick yourself and while I understand that many people can't or won't do it, those of us who do can't imagine letting anyone else do it.  I found that it hurt less. gave me more independence and gave me control over doing everything I could to prolong the life of my fistula...consistent laddering and establishment of buttonholes.

Not for everyone but definitely for me.

[willowtreewren]

All I can say about your center is.....

WOW

Aleta

[RichardMEL]

does sound like a great unit there. Ours we have lockers... big enough for me to put my blanket in and two big pillows that I use.. could probably fit a bit more in if I needed to but that is enough. Let me see at our unit they just have the hospital wi-fi but won't give me a password so I just watch stuff I've downloaded or dvd's on my laptop or I watch the tv's they have above the chairs (ie: if footy is on!). all the medical stuff is done by nurses and there's a PSA who brings us sandwiches and tea/coffee and our regular one - a lovely lady from Argentina - is a real gem and everything runs smoothly when she is there - not so much when they have to get some random person in who doesn't know the drill with cleaning the machines or replacing the supplies etc. Everyone knows eachother pretty well and are on first name basis and we all get on well I am very happy with my unit.

[monrein]

The downsides of course are there, no such thing as perfection...not the newest, fanciest of anything ...like chairs or tvs (although they're supposed to be doing some upgrades soon) and my biggest little annoyance was having to fiddle with the blinds that let in too much sun, I felt I was at the beach, through the slits at the side.  I was hoping to win the lottery and pay personally to replace them but so far no go  I've heard that the other satellite unit is top of the line as it is newer.
We always had clean sheets to line the chairs and our choice of bandages, sure-seal or whatever, and three different types of tape. 

I was on the patient advocacy committee many years ago when we came up with the idea of these types of satellite unit and began the process of pushing to have them set up.  The units each serve several different hospitals and the funding is shared by the budgets of those hospitals they serve.