Clothes donation appeal to help hospital patients

Staff at the Queen's Medical Centre have launched an appeal for donations of warm clothes to avoid discharging patients in winter wearing "gowns or pyjamas".

Clothing banks are available at the hospital in Nottingham, but officials said these mostly contained summer clothing items.

Zoe Rayner, deputy sister at the transfer care unit, said the hospital would accept "anything wearable" including coats, shirts, jumpers, scarves, and hats.

She added hospital gowns were too thin for the weather and that a patient's own clothes could be dirty if there were no friends or family to provide a change.

Ms Rayner said: "They will go home sometimes with what they come in with - and actually we'd rather not send people out in something that's got two-week-old food on it.

"I also wouldn't want my nanna turning up at home in a hospital gown at -1C (30F) in the middle of winter."

Ms Rayner said the problem of patients leaving hospital in unsuitable clothing was more common than might be expected.

"There is that much going on with [someone] being in hospital, the last thing they're thinking about is the clothes they're going to wear on the way out," she added.

She said the donations would provide patients with "dignity", adding: "I had someone come down from a ward, in a gown, and it was quite cold.

"They were meant to be going home and they had nothing with them and the gowns are open back.

"We got them dressed and it was like we had humanised them. They looked like themselves again."

Anyone wishing to donate warm clothing is asked to take it directly to ward A43 at the Queen's Medical Centre.

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