Happy Hookers knit End of Life Hearts for hospital

The Happy Hookers group have put their skills to use in helping out with an initiative to comfort bereaved families in their time of need at Mullingar hospital.

They crocheted End of Life Hearts and presented them to Emma O’Sullivan for the end of life care committee, Sinéad Mahon – a crochet teacher at Mullingar Congress Centre – explained. “The Happy Hookers meet once a week and we saw an opportunity to help out the local hospital, where they have collected some crochet hearts – they can be knitted as well, but we crocheted some hearts for them in the colour purple, which is the symbol of end of life.

“The hearts are given to a person who is possibly about to pass and a second heart is provided to their family. So the last person that will have touched that heart would be the person that has passed, and that offers comfort to the family in their moment of need.

“I know personally I’ve used it twice this year and we have got great comfort out of knowing that that is the last thing that our loved one touched.”

Emma O’Sullivan is the clinical nurse specialist in bereavement at the Midland Regional Hospital Mullingar. “In that role, I support our patients and their families in end of life care. I also chair our end of life committee. We’re always trying to think of new ways to improve the end of life care delivery in the hospital, and this project came from one of our colleagues, Trish Gill in nursing admin, who sadly lost her brother last year.

“In the hospital in Dublin where he was cared for, they were given crocheted hearts after her brother died, and she felt that was a lovely touch and they got great comfort from it. She brought the suggestion to me and I discussed it with my colleagues on the end of life committee, and we all thought it was a lovely idea.”

Emma expressed her gratitude to Sinéad and her friends at the Happy Hookers, and the many other crochet and knitting groups in the community who have supported the project. “We have been able to supply these hearts to our bereaved families, and I’m delighted to say the feedback from the families and our staff has been very positive. People get great comfort from it, and we’re very proud of the project.

“We just want to thank Sinéad and all the team here this evening for making these beautiful hearts for us. We know that it will be really comforting to the families that we are dealing with.”

Sinéad added her thanks to “all of the ladies who have participated in the group, in providing these hearts – they’ve worked long and hard to put these together and they’ve done a lot of good work.” The crochet experts provide the yarn for the purple hearts at their own expense, and their regular supplier is Woolly Castle in Kinnegad.