Family CARE Grant Gives Dialysis Patients an Activity – and a Reminder of Home
Published Monday, June 23, 2025
Pictured (L–R): Lorraine McKay, Indigenous Navigator; Ramsey Broennle, Indigenous Chronic Kidney Disease Care Lead; and Susan Anderson, Indigenous Navigator, all with the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre.
Dialysis is a life-saving treatment for those with chronic kidney disease. Patients who receive “in-centre” hemodialysis (at a hospital rather than at home) spend up to four hours on dialysis, three times per week. In-centre dialysis is available at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre, Meno Ya Win Health Centre in Sioux Lookout, Riverside Health Care Facilities in Fort Frances, and Lake of the Woods District Hospital dialysis units.
Many patients from northern communities must relocate to one of these in-centre units to receive their dialysis. They leave behind family, community, and cultural norms to live in unfamiliar spaces.
Thanks to your donations to the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation, the Renal Department can provide patients a familiar activity from home with the help of a Family CARE Grant. Mini Beading Kits from Thunder Bay-based EverBead offer patients an activity to complete while spending hours on treatment.
“Many of our patients do beading in their communities, so we thought it might be something they would enjoy here, too,” said Allyson Hoard-Mann, Manager of the North West Regional Renal Program. “It helps them keep active and engaged in a familiar activity they might do at home during the long hours of dialysis treatment.”
The Mini Beading Kits include everything needed to make beaded pins, which patients keep when they're done. EverBead offers about 20 designs including an Orange Shirt, a strawberry, a Medicine Wheel, and Hello Kitty.
“It feels good to know that the Mini Beading Kits will be helping people who may be going through a difficult time with their health,” said EverBead owner Darci Everson. “Working with your hands and being creative distracts you from the stress. Beading is healing; beading is medicine.”
EverBead started as a small project for the daughter of a friend and grew into a thriving business during COVID. Today, Everson employs five high school students including her daughter and son to help put together the kits while she completes her Master of Social Work degree.
Andrea Kromm, Renal Coordinator, said they got the idea from Lorrainne McKay, one of two renal Indigenous Navigators who took part in an EverBead workshop during an Orange Shirt Day celebration at the Hospital.
“The workshop gave staff here at the Hospital the opportunity to try beading,” Kromm said.
“Susan (Anderson, the other Renal Indigenous Patient Navigator) and Lorraine support the initiative,” Hoard-Mann said. “Both are beaders and create earrings or moccasins for their families and friends.”
The kits will be offered primarily to the patients on in-centre dialysis. However, patients who come for clinic visits to the Multi-Care Kidney Clinic, Peritoneal Dialysis Unit, or Home Hemodialysis Unit will also be able to access the kit.
“Many of our patients stay in hotels or at Wequedong Lodge while here for their treatments and appointments, so it's something they can take with them and do there as well,” Kromm said.
“It's a unique project for us, and something we've never tried before,” Hoard-Mann said. “It's difficult for patients who have to leave their home community and move to Thunder Bay for dialysis treatment. These Mini Beading Kits aren't just an activity; they are a reminder of home.”
You helped make these Mini Beading Kits happen, thanks to your support of the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation! The Family CARE Grant Program is like a suggestion box for staff members who see ways to improve patient care. The difference is, this suggestion box comes with the funds needed to put their plan into action. Find out more: healthsciencesfoundation.ca/familycare
Article by: Graham Strong