People need to stop knitting and donating chocolate etc our hospital!

[AuntyClockWise]

I was drafted in to help nursing staff today sort through 300 (yes, really) Easter eggs that have been donated over the past few weeks and sort these for food banks and care homes and childcare hubs. Took half a day plus lots of storage space.

A lady turned up at the hospital with 30 home made/sewn face masks. She was very angry when the main desk had to turn her away and decline the items as apparently she'd spent ages on them and had travelled a long way to get them to the hospital. Again, more time spent dealing with this person and not to mention the fact she had travelled unnecessarily.

Where has this idea come from for people to donate so much stuff to hospitals? Don't people realise that PPE has to meet a certain level of safety standard so we need to get from reliable and tested companies? Do people think that we have the space and time to deal with all the food and drinks donated?

Our hospital has put out a facebook post today to reiterate we can't accept donations like these and there are now hundreds of angry responses calling us ungrateful and that they're annoyed this wasn't said sooner as they've spent weeks knitting and sewing various things for the nurses and doctors to use on the wards.

I'm sure people are trying to be nice but why isn't common sense prevailing? Why not donate time and energy to a place which has the resources and ability to accept such donations?

Of course, I'm only able to speak for common feelings shared today in my place of work. Some other people here might say they are loving the donations.

Just wanted to suggest on here that if you are considering donating something to your local hospital, I'd suggest phoning the main desk first or sending them an email as the likelihood is that they can't accept it.

Maybe your hospital should reach out on social media and say it can't accept these items and note on doorstep with maybe suggestions for anywhere that good
With regards to Easter eggs guessing 300 didn't turn up at once so could of been left in staff room as arrived and all staff made aware to help themselves
Sounds a little ungrateful moaning but not being pro active in doing anything by nit advising you don't want or need items after first couple items were brought in

No way I would donate to a union sorry

If some of you are working in hospitals who don't want any donations at all then why not put a message on local Facebook news groups saying so
The message will soon get out there then and save you making upteen calls etc but som hospitals clearly so want to receive so they can then continue to do so

No idea why you're getting a hard time OP. Of course it takes time and energy to sort donations. I have a relative who worked at Great Ormond St and staff were given something ridiculous like 30 Easter eggs each one year, and that was after patients has been given as many as they could take. Donations are kind, but there comes a point when they are unnecessary if everyone else has had the same idea.

@Easilyanxious

You might want to read the OP! The hospital has made a social media post telling people not to donate these items and they got angry responses.

I kind of get the sentiment but I’m shocked at it taking 4 people, 4 hours. Clearly you’re not working very effectively. I’d have grabbed some bin bags or similar, divided them up and written on the bag/box. Why on earth weren’t they given to staff? The nurses in my team - much like the rest of us - would have guzzled a lot down.
Yes, people should check what hospitals want/need but 4 professionals should also use their heads and find a more effective and quicker way to do tasks like this.

We keep getting takeaway meals donated. Lovely gesture. But we all bring our own food in or buy at work and it's not being eaten.

I can understand the poor woman who'd made the face masks feeling upset at being given short shrift, tbh. She was hardly unreasonable when these things have actually been asked for on social media. No they haven't! Where on social media have hospitals asked for home made face masks? They would never meet PPE standards ffs.

I blame social media. Everyone looking for 'likes', desperate to virtue signal without considering if what they are foisting on the NHS is either use or ornament.

@WhyCantIThinkOfAGoodOne
I did read op and appears a Facebook post was made after lots of donations my comment was more to others who were saying the same
Plus maybe on Facebook post suggestions of who would find useful ie Easter eggs to food banks etc
Plus the eggs I really can’t see an issue 300 in a hospital isn’t huge amounts and I’m sure like I said didn’t all come in one day . Doesn’t seem like take that long to sort out
And you can understand why people are doing as some hospitals are asking for things so people aren’t aware they are only trying to help as well and showing their appreciation.

I do agree though no need for rude comments if they put a nice post up saying they aren’t needing items etc

Christ on a bike this is bonkers.....if people want to help the NHS then donate money. Don't bring in your latest craft project

Not sure what's hard to understand - the last thing hospitals need is to be overwhelmed with tat

If they want something they will ask and proper support groups will organise it

If you donate money, it will not make its way to frontline staff in any meaningful way. That’s been pointed out by staff here and on other sites. The managers will sit on it until they’ve decided what they think they might need, without consulting those it was meant for.

To those who donated Easter eggs- thank you for mine, I really appreciated it and made it a much better day for me and my colleagues.

Even more so since the Easter eggs were distributed on good Friday, a bank holiday, which my hospital had turned into a normal working day.

It took 4 staff 4 hours to "sort" 300 eggs?! Seriously!
16 hours? 2 full days work? What the hell did you do with them?

16houra of staff time spent "sorting chocolate". Fuck me and they try to tell us the public sector isn't inefficient.

Our local hospital IS accepting PPE but has a volunteer who is co-ordinating it, doing quality control and sending out patterns etc. I think your hospital is unusual in not accepting anything. Ours is only accepting food from businesses who make food, partly to avoid too much and partly to ensure hygiene.
However you are not wrong to be very very clear about what you need or don't need. Please do that. My experience working in charities in 'normal' time is that the public respond well to clear instructions about what will help. People aren't trying to make nursing staff's lives more difficult. If that has happened it's a communication break down.

sort these for food banks and care homes and childcare hubs.

The OP and her colleagues were sorting them out for other places, that's in the second line of her first post.

Also in the OP's first post.

Our hospital has put out a facebook post today to reiterate we can't accept donations like these

So they have notified people but that hasn't gone down well because people are already well into making these items now, and probably started the task with the best of intentions. But you do need to be quite selective with social media and not take everything at face value without checking it first.

OP yanbu at all. And whoever posted about someone crocheting face masks, I really hope they've misunderstood their relative because that's spectacularly missing the whole point!

I think BridgetReilly had the best simile - the mil with the bin bags of Christmas tat expecting you to be grateful.

We've got a well organised local group storming through scrubs bags and caps, and private care homes have been asking for fabric masks, but they're being done completely separately as no-one with an NHS affiliation wants anything to do with home made masks.

I'm sewing fabric masks myself though - for family and friends - for when lockdown eases. I'm being careful to make them as non-medical looking as possible (Asian style with filter pocket). Very much for preventing transmission rather than expecting huge amounts of protection.

Hi

This reminds me of the aftermouth of Grenfell - where volunteers ended up dealing with hundreds of thousands of donated items from up and down the land, in far greater volumes than needed.

What this shows is that the British Public are generally very kind. We see news stories about nurses working long shifts, staying away from home, and try to help by sending food and chocolate.

We see shortages of PPE and people try to help. Home made face masks may not be suitable for use in a hospital, but they were made with the best of intentions.

It is fine saying donate money, but at the moment a lot of people are time rich and cash poor.

My local hospital's charity are dealing with donations on behalf of the hospital. They are being clear about what is needed, they've set up a collection point away from the main hospital manned by volunteers to accept donations. They are working with the foodbank and council to re-direct surplus items to other organisations and charities. This seems to be working reasonably well. It certainly seems more efficient than using 16 hours of nursing time to sort out 300 Easter Eggs.

Took us 4 hours because we had to source boxes and bags from other depts, give everything a wipe down, then call round places today to ask if they wanted the chocolate then we had to go and meet each person/agency at a rendezvous point in the car park. I'm not a manager, but they prioritised this task yesterday because of my previously mentioned reasons and they determined we were the most appropriate staff to do it due to a combination of annual leave, parental leave, generally having poor staffing levels, lots of staff working from home and just availability on the day really.

I'm more surprised that many of you think you could have done this quicker. I'm also surprised at how spectacularly some of you are missing the point and calling us inefficient for taking 4 hours' time to do this - this is the point of the thread: stop donating stuff to hospitals unless you have had confirmation they want your items otherwise it could use up a lot of resources and time trying to rehome it.

Not sure how it all started but was definitely not us requesting anything. Likely one person dropped in the odd gift, it was gratefully received, then it became daily stuff and hospital was quickly inundated.

Maybe some of you are struggling to see the problem because your town has a big hospital where space isn't really an issue? We are a rural area and our hospital is very small and understaffed. Or maybe some of you haven't had to sort and coordinate rehoming of 300 eggs before! I certainly didn't anticipate it would take as long as it did when I agreed to go in yesterday to help.

I don't know why you are getting a hard time either OP. It has been abundently obvious that some of the suggested crafts going around weren't going to be acceptable for hospital use, but there are still people locally producing them.

It's about feeling useful.

It's not that big a step to just pause and check what would actually be useful though frankly.

My local hospital has an Amazon wishlist for things for staff & patients. I believe yesterday they got something like 8 cages full of parcels. At least its things they want & can use. There are staff working full time dealing with it though which seems crazy.

You've been super clear OP.
It's the same at the local food bank -

check what's needed before putting in time, energy & money and donating.

Can I interest you in a(nother) handcream?

I hear you OP. It never ceases to amaze me that people are willing to take any old FB post as gospel without checking it's provenance. And then the hospital is the bad guy for saying no thanks!

The worst one I saw was one encouraging people to crochet hearts with strings; the idea being that one heart would be tied to the body of a deceased COVID patient and the other given to their family so that they could feel close to them. Our local FB page was full of people leaping into action over it but the whole idea gave me the absolute rage! I'm not sure exactly why it would bother me so much but I'd be absolutely furious if the body of a loved one of mine got adorned with a twee crocheted heart! Grief is such a personal thing and I'd rather someone else didn't decide how to help mine. I suppose (in the IMO unlikely event that this is happening at all) permission could be asked first but that's not a conversation I want to be having if I'm being told someone close to me has just died.

All this stuff is very well intentioned I'm sure but if people aren't willing to check that these requests are legit then they have no right to get angry with hospitals for turning them away. There is plenty of genuine stuff out there to help with.