Residents at a Bridlington care home have been presented with hand-made knitted hearts thanks to a Bridlington lady and her daughter.
Erin O’Neill and her daughter Rubie-Leigh, four, have created around 30 knitted hearts
for residents at Red House Residential Home on St Anne’s Road in Bridlington.
“I’m not really into crafting, however I learnt to do some knitting when I was eight years old. I picked up how to create the hearts by watching explanatory videos on the internet” explained Erin.
“I was aiming to send the hearts to Scarborough Hospital, but a friend said that local nursing homes would also benefit from them.
Red House acting Deputy Manager Tom Armstrong said: “ The lady, who’s great grandmother had previously been in our care, knitted red love hearts for each of our service users. We then made a tag to put on these love hearts and put their name on them with a message of love from each of their family members.”
“The hearts have had a positive impact on our service users who are missing their families terribly throughout this pandemic. We are doing everything we can to ensure we maintain good social relationships with their families through video calls where appropriate.” explained Tom.
He added:”I would also like to mention how commendable our full staff team has been throughout the pandemic, their grit, determination and tenacity has ensured that we have been able to maintain a high level of person centred care to ensure that their daily lives remain as unchanged as possible during the pandemic. The partnership working between our staff and the service users families has been phenomenal and highly commended.” added Tom.
Paula King from Bridlington, whose mother is a resident, was also delighted with the idea.
“My mum is in Red House and as a family we have been so moved by these lovely knitted hearts and message. They are such a lovely gesture and mean so much to us as we cannot go in to physically see our loved ones during this national pandemic.” said Paula.
“We know that no one can visit their loved ones but those in care homes often cannot understand why they are not being visited and it can become very distressing for all involved.” She continued.
“Hopefully the message will help them every time they look at them as it reminds them that they must keep the heart close to them as they are loved and that we will see them as soon as we can and this is precisely what we would say to mum if we could see her.“ Paula said.
“This may just be a little knitted heart with a small message but to us it makes all the difference and little things really do mean a lot.” added Paula