Feels like home
Your kindness provides the comforts of home for patients and residents at St. Joseph’s.
Our homes. They are the places where we feel safe, comfortable, connected and cared for.
For Jamie Hackland and Terry Abbott, home is the Veterans Care Program at St. Joseph’s Health Care London.
And with your generosity through the 2025 Season of Celebration (SOC) campaign, they feel more at home than ever before. They have access to the newest medical equipment, keeping them healthy and safe and they live each day with connection, purpose and joy.
The two neighbours can often be found enjoying a pool game together or taking part in cooking classes, bingo nights, square dancing lessons or trips to Airshow London.
“None of this happens without donors,” Rebecca Wilkes says. “You make healing possible.”
These enriching therapeutic recreation activities are designed to support the physical and mental health of residents in the Program, providing a lifeline of connection, a way to stay active and a sense of normalcy. Therapeutic recreation programs are found in care across St. Joseph’s, including residents who make their home at Mount Hope Centre for Long Term Care, and patients who have long-term stays in hospital. These therapeutic programs are supported through SOC funding, helping ensure meaningful, person-centred recreational care for those with complex and ongoing needs.
Like Doris, who spent six months in Parkwood Institute recovering from health challenges. A self-described “doer”, Doris is grateful to the therapeutic recreation team for creating a plan to help her to get back to doing things she loved and meeting new people.
The sense of community at Parkwood helped her steadily progress in her recovery. “I started to feel more like me again,” she shares about that time. “My personality came back. My fight came back.”
Patients and residents wouldn’t be able to participate in these meaningful therapeutic activities without the specialized medical equipment that allows care teams to diagnose, treat and monitor illness or injury while providing compassionate care. This includes things like specialized hospital beds, mattresses and lifts, blanket warmers, SMART Boards, portable bladder scanners and more.
Medical social worker (MSW) Rebecca Wilkes, who works in the Veterans Care Program, sees the difference your support makes every day.
“None of this happens without donors,” she says. “You make healing possible.”