Record-breaking donation kits out children's ward

Members of the Rochdale Lions, (seated from left to right) Eileen Taylor, Peter Spencer and Linda Spencer, take a seat on a glideaway bed with syringe pumps, joined by (standing from left to right) Andrea Scholey, Yvonne Tunstall and Louise Gallagher from Rochdale Infirmary’s Children’s Unit

A £75,000 donation – the largest single donation ever made to children’s charity MedEquip4Kids – has funded almost £30,000 of medical equipment for Rochdale Infirmary’s Children’s Unit.

The Co-operative Group made the donation to MedEquip4Kids last year and the equipment it has funded has been arriving at hospitals throughout the North West over the last few months.

MedEquip4Kids raises money to provide medical equipment for children’s wards and neo-natal units at hospitals across the region to help ensure teenagers, children and babies receive the best possible care when sick or injured.

The donation has provided the children’s unit with syringe pumps, used to administer medication in precise quantities; six glideaway beds, which allow parents to sleep in next to their child’s bed during overnight stays; and a dash monitor to measure a child’s heart rate, oxygen levels, temperature and blood pressure.

Donations from the Rochdale Lions and Littleborough and District Lions also helped fund the £28,495 bumper batch of equipment.

Yvonne Tunstall, divisional nurse manager for the Pennine Acute NHS Hospitals Trust, which runs Rochdale Infirmary, said: “The purchase of essential items of medical equipment such as syringe pumps and the dash monitor is essential in the treatment of children who are critically ill and require their vital signs monitoring while receiving acute medical care.

“Parents and carers stay overnight with their children and the purchase of the glideaway beds allow parents to stay next to their children in a comfortable bed.”

MedEquip4Kids’ Lindsay Southall said: “This was an incredibly generous donation from The Co-operative Group and it is fantastic to now see the equipment on the wards and being used by the nursing staff making a difference to the children in Rochdale.”