NEWS PHOTO GILLIAN SLADE Christmas stockings for patients in Medicine Hat Regional Hospital will include a special snow globe this year. Sandy Kapeller, RE/MAX Medalta Real Estate, who is helping to stuff 200 stockings admires the snow globes.
gslade@medicinehatnews.com@MHNGillianSlade
Santa’s helpers filled 200 Christmas stockings on Wednesday for patients who will be in hospital over Christmas.
“What we are trying to achieve is when the patient wakes up on Christmas Day there is a stocking on the bed,” said Heather Bach, executive director Medicine Hat & District Health Foundation. “It’s an effort to cheer them up and reduce their stress.”
This is the sixth year RE/MAX Medalta Real Estate has sponsored the initiative. Each stocking is filled with a crossword puzzle book, pen, personal care products, mints, a warm knitted hat or gloves, and this year a little snow globe ornament.
Sandy Kapeller of RE/MAX has been involved in filling the stocking almost every year.
“This is just awesome. It would be sad to wake up (Christmas Day) without something at the end of your bed,” said Kapeller.
As Shauneen Vanderham filled Christmas stockings she says she was thinking about how tough it would be to be so ill you had to spend Christmas in hospital.
Bach says boxes of Christmas stockings are delivered to each hospital unit on Christmas Eve. Nursing staff then place them on the beds of patients so that they find them in the morning on Christmas Day.
Every effort is made to ensure those who could possibly manage at home have the opportunity to do so rather than be in hospital. If there happen to be more Christmas stockings than patients the rest are delivered to the emergency department for anyone who seeks medical care in an emergency on Christmas Day, said Bach.
