Sewing Room
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center is one of the few children's hospitals that has a sewing room actually on site. The sewing room coordinator is Jo Santen, who was a nurse for 25 years. She leads a staff of volunteers to make a child's stay at the hospital as much like home as possible.
Items made in the sewing room include children's clothing, quilts for beds and cribs, toys for use by Cincinnati Children's Child Life Department, soft helmets for patients with neurological disorders and teaching tools used by the nursing staff.
A unique teaching tool that was conceived in the sewing room is the ostomy doll. The dolls are customized to each child -- matching the skin tone, eye color, hair and distinguishing characteristics, such as freckles -- as closely as possible. The sewing room has around 150 volunteers that include several community sewing groups. The sewing room is open Monday through Thursday from 8:00 am to 3:30 pm.
