Thank you to everyone who donated to our 2020 Christmas Appeal. As a result, the $6,000 tonometer we need for our Warrnambool emergency department is about to be ordered. This will spare lots of local people having to be urgently transferred to Geelong or Melbourne. A tonometer measures the pressure inside a patient’s eye to screen for glaucoma that’s capable of stripping eyesight within a matter of hours. People of all ages can experience this type of eye trauma.
We now turn our fundraising attention to the upcoming 2021 Murray to Moyne Cycle Relay. Three wonderful teams of cyclists and their equally wonderful support crews complete this relay for us each and every year. The Scrubbers & The Gasman rides for our Warrnambool operating theatres’ medical equipment needs, Warrnambool College rides for our paediatric-specific medical equipment needs and Grasmere Primary School rides for our palliative care-specific medical equipment needs.
Should you wish to support any of these teams in their fundraising endeavours leading up to this March 27/28 event please contact our community partnerships manager Suzan Morey at smorey@swh.net.au or on (03) 5564 4100.
During 2019-20 we received $828,000 in donations and gifts. This was an impressive outcome given our donors would also have generously supported Victorian bushfire appeals throughout summer and have had their giving-ability impacted by COVID-19 from March onwards.
Of all the unaffordable medical equipment and initiatives our donors allowed us to finance, the purchasing of $261,000 of paediatric-specific MRI equipment was our proudest moment. No longer will sick children have to travel hundreds of kilometres away to have their MRI scans under conscious sedation. We will have all the equipment needed, right here at home.
Other medical equipment and initiatives financed by donors and fundraising in 2019-20 included:
| Intensive Care Unit TEG haemostasis analyzer | $30,000 |
| Oncology Unit infusion pumps fleet | $44,000 |
| SW CASA waiting room refurbishment | $5,000 |
| Cancer Services therapy suite/office rental | $12,340 |
| Community Palliative Care care alerts x 10 | $3,591 |
| Special Care Nursery neonatal ventilator | $45,000 |
| Warrnambool Base Hospital volunteers trolley | $1,477 |
| Camperdown Hospital bilirubin | $3,599 |
| Merindah Lodge lounge room refurbishment | $5,000 |
| Oncology Unit SOZO machine & software licensing fee | $17,285 |
| Community Palliative Care portable oxygen units x 2 | $8,500 |
| Home Dialysis Training Centre treatment chair | $8,000 |
| Camperdown Hospital Theatre linear transducer | $8,500 |
| Acute Unit vital signs monitor | $5,500 |
| Rehabilitation Unit patient lifter | $5,320 |
| Midwifery Unit armchairs x 20 | $25,000 |
| Emergency Department storage trolley | $1,960 |
| Short Stay Unit height-adjustable chairs x 6 | $1,260 |
| Warrnambool Base Hospital Delta Therapy Dogs program | $3,000 |
| Community Palliative Care heel wedges x 10 | $1,750 |
As always, our auxiliaries, Murray2Moyne Relay Cycle Teams and staff generously donated their time, expertise and energy in 2019-20 to raise $35,260, $5,270 and $5,883 respectively while $468,204 was received in bequests and memorial gifts.
| Camperdown & District Auxiliary | 5,000 |
| Camperdown Hospital Trolley Auxiliary | 300 |
| Warrnambool Auxiliary | 10,000 |
| Woolsthorpe Auxiliary | 19,960 |
| Scrubbers & The Gasman | 3,131 |
| Warrnambool College | 2,139 |
| Rehabilitation Unit/GEM Therapeutic Garden Committee | 2,365 |
| Workplace Giving Program | 3,518 |