“What would Dorothy do?”
That was the question Teresa Wareham asked herself throughout her career as a registered nurse of more than 35 years at St. Boniface Hospital and the Minnedosa and District Hospital.
Wareham followed her older sister, Holly, into the St. Boniface Hospital School of Nursing.
“In my formative years, I heard Holly talk at the dinner table about school and what she was learning,” she remembered. “Then she told stories about working at St. B. I decided that was what I wanted to do.”
Wareham graduated from the School of Nursing in 1981. Whenever she was faced with a difficult situation on the job, Wareham would remember the kindness of Dorothy Carswell, her head nurse and mentor at St. B from 1981 to 1984.
“Dorothy was the most wonderful head nurse,” remembered Wareham, on the phone from her hometown of Minnedosa. “I remember when other staff members of the Hospital approached us in a way that was, shall we say, unkind or insensitive, Dorothy would stand her ground in a disagreement and defend her nurses. It always felt like she valued me,” she said.
Wareham married her husband, Dean, in 1984. The couple moved back to Minnedosa together, and she stared working as a nurse at the Minnedosa and District Hospital, where she stayed until her retirement in 2018.
St. Boniface Hospital became a meaningful place for the Warehams because of compassionate people like Carswell. Now both retired, they decided to leave a bequest to the Hospital in their estate. The Warehams are also monthly donors to the Foundation.
High standard of care important
“When Dean and I were doing our estate planning in 2017, we wanted to leave a percentage of our money where it will do the most good for the most people,” said Wareham. “We have confidence in St. Boniface Hospital and its staff, and how they will use our gifts.”
“There is a very high standard of patient care at St. B,” she continued. “When I worked there as a nurse or have used its services, I felt that everyone has always reached for that standard. At the same time, they have made it compassionate and personal.”