A new bereavement room has opened in the A&E department of the Cumberland Infirmary. It is a place for relatives to spend their last moments with their loved ones and gives people privacy and dignity at the end of their life as well as their loved ones.
Laura Shields is the lead nurse in the department and has led the project, she explained why the new space is important:
“I think it’ll make a massive difference. Everybody experiences loss throughout their life and it’s those last moments that really stick with you and you remember for the rest of your life.
“Especially when it comes to end of life care we only really get one chance to make it right and by giving people somewhere private and dignified, somewhere where they’re not feeling like they are in a hospital, they’re not feeling like they’re being rushed or feeling like they need to leave or being interrupted by nurses / doctors or just how busy the department is.
“Then they can leave knowing that their loved one was valued and taken care of and they had all the time they needed to spend with them.”
The areas is part of the department’s improvement plan and they are incredibly proud of their achievements as it will enable the staff to give better care to patients and their families. Laura was extremely keen to make sure the space was as homely as possible rather than not clinical and so contacted various local firms to ask if they would like to donate items for the room. She was touched by the generosity she was shown:
She said:
"What I do know is that everything inside the room hasn’t cost us anything
because it was given to us on the generosity of the local community. Companies like Vaseys, Edmonsons the florist, Donaldsons and I was contacted by a lovely lady who had recently had a bereavement herself and wanted to donate a lot of the furniture in her mother in law’s memory and that was really touching and so that’s how I know that this is the kind of thing that people will want because this is the feedback that we have been getting from our patients and relatives as well.”
The Trust extends its sincere thanks to the following people who donated items:
- Vaseys,
- Donaldsons,
- Edmonsons the florist
- Dunelm
- LALO
- Pypog gift shop,
- Amazingly artificial,
- Moss art selby,
- Deborah Paisley
- Chewiecat,
- Temple house
- Angelika Herold.