It includes a $43,861 foetal monitor and a tonsillectomy coblation system some of the bigger Melbourne hospitals don’t yet have.
Funded by our SWH Camperdown & District Hospital Auxiliary, a foetal monitor electronically records the heartbeat of an unborn baby and the contractions of their mum during labour to provide critical insight into the level of stress the baby is under during labor and birth. Funded by our SWH Warrnambool Auxiliary, the Morray2Moyne Cycle Relay Team, Findex, and the Warrnambool Lawn Tennis Bowls Club, the coblation system will be shared between the theatres of our Camperdown and Warrnambool Base Hospitals. This newer type of tonsillectomy surgery is known to causes less pain than a traditional tonsillectomy. It also reduces the risk of bleeding and provides a quicker recovery. Post-coblation, younger patients are frequently eating a normal diet within a few days and are frequently back at kinder/school a week after surgery, instead of a fortnight after – which is a huge benefit for parents having to take time off work.
Meantime, the kindness of other donors has seen to the ordering of another $89,000 of medical equipment now on its way. This includes three patient trolleys for the operating theatres worth $60,000; a $20,000 patient trolley for the urgent care centre; a $6,000 patient treatment chair for the isolation room in the urgent care centre, and the $3,000 12-month hire of a virtual-reality SmileyScope for hospitalised children.
‘We are so grateful to these donors, and their supporters, who have worked really hard to raise $140,861 for us to purchase all of this new medical equipment,’ says SWH Community Partnerships Manager Suzan Morey. ‘To be able to buy our first-ever coblation system; update our foetal monitor and four patient trolleys; buy a treatment chair for our urgent care centre’s isolation room; and hire our first virtual-reality SmileyScope for younger patients via donations shows the incredible generosity of our local communities.’
PHOTO courtesy of Western District Newspapers. From left: SWH Camperdown & District Hospital Auxiliary’s Ian Currell and Lou Ebbelaar with midwife Annita Opoku Agyemang and the new foetal monitor + ENT registrar Dr Will Murphy, otorhinolaryngologist Dr Bridget Clancey and operating theatre nurse unit manager Nikki Delaney with the coblation system and SWH Warrnambool Auxiliary’s Di Goodall, Margot Johnstone, Pamela Beechy and Carolyn Monaghan, Warrnambool College Murray–Moyne Team’s Lester Campbell and Jack Frankel, and Scott Johnstone from Findex.