About The Royal Alex

There are usually between 20 and 30 children on active treatment within the hospital's NHS Trust catchment area.

With 31 beds in total, the medical ward incorporates the Oncology Ward. It is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and cares for babies, children and young people up to the age of 19.

The hospital cares for children with a wide range of medical conditions, including cystic fibrosis, asthma, diabetes, oxygen dependency, infectious diseases, complex needs, overdoses, psychiatric issues such as self harming and chest infections such as pneumonia, respiratory and metabolic disorders.

The ward is supported by dedicated play specialists who will spend time with children and young people during their stay. To support their work, the ward has a dedicated play area with toys for children and a separate room for adolescents with play stations, pool table and TV. 

The ward has 19 single bedrooms with their own bathrooms, giving children and their parents or carers plenty of privacy and quiet. Two of these are designed for older children, with a semi-separated parents’ bedroom for more privacy. The other beds are in roomy four-bed bays with an en suite bathroom. These have plenty of central space for parents to sit and children to play with toys.

All bedrooms have specially designed low-level windows for children to look out of when they’re lying in bed. All beds have a television allowing children access to a range of channels. There are also pay phones by the side of the beds, so that parents and children can remain in contact with one another. 

For more information please visit the Royal Alex's website. 

The 1,2,3s and A,B,Cs of Making Pillowcases

Making pillowcases can be very fun and rewarding; however, it is important that you follow the directions properly - especially if you are planning on donating your pillowcases to a hospital. I have set out below some easy how-to steps for creating a beautiful, child friendly pilowcase which will brighten the walls of any drab looking hospital room.

Step One: Go with your partner or friends to somewhere that sells fabric. This can be a nice outing to go on as it is fun to pick out all of the different combinations of fabric that you want to use.

Step Two: Make tea/coffee to help motivate your husband to continue cutting up all of the fabric into pillowcase bodies and ends.

Step Three: Match up bodies with ends and give husband a back rub as he slaves over the sewing machine, stitching them together.

Step Four: Take photos of your newest creations and share them with others by posting them on your blog.

Step Five: After your husband has washed, ironed and packaged the pillowcases, place a couple of stamps on your gift box and pop it in the post. 

How our pillowcases are being used

Today we received an email from the Operations Manager at the Royal Alex Children's Hospital following her conversaiton with the Matrons on the wards. In her email, she explained how our pillowcases are being used and we were told that they are being given to children in the in-patient and high dependency wards, especially to those receiving long term care who are in need of "an extra little something". We were so very touched to receive this email and glad that we started this project.

REFLECTIONS AT THE HALF WAY POINT

I am delighted to announce that, having now completed 50 pillowcases, we are half way to reaching our 100 pillowcase goal!

Here is a photo of the latest 5 designs.

These past few months have certainly been a steep learning curve for me and so far there has only been one personal injury 'incident' - always make sure you take your foot off the foot pedal when threading the needle by the way. Mark has taught me a lot and we are blessed by the knowledge he has gained from his mum - not to mention the sewing machine he brought over with him from America! Together we continue to work hard and expand our knowledge and ability.

And, for all you scrap owl fans, I can confirm that 3 more are in progress...!

Thank you again to all of those still checking up on us - so far we have had over 2200 visitors.
Laura

A productive weekend

Here is a snap of our latest 5 pillowcases:

..... Nearly at fifty!!

Off to post the next 20 pillowcases!

We are making good progress and at this rate are managing to send out 20 pillowcases a month.

Thank you to the editors of The Lawyer magazine

We are very grateful to The Lawyer for publishing an article on Love, The Tanguays.

The full article can be found here:

http://l2b.thelawyer.com/trainee-solicitor-creates-pillowcases-for-charity/1011870.article