Margaret Moule of Macksville Opportunity Shop (front, centre) with a very grateful Acting Deputy Director of Nursing Donna Kennedy (left) and Perioperative Nurse Unit Manager Theresa Keighran following the volunteers’ $13,000 donation to Macksville District Hospital. Joining the trio at a get-together to celebrate the massive achievement were Macksville Hospital Administration Manager Toni Winters and Op Shop volunteers Linda Mumford, John Livermore, Brad Fuller, Jane Fullford, Shane Brown and Bev Kirkby.
Op Shop ‘strykes’ again with $13,000 gift
Mar 25, 2021Macksville Opportunity Shop volunteers have returned to Macksville District Hospital with yet another $13,000 surgical bed.
The volunteers’ hard work, and the community’s generous support of the Cooper Street Op Shop, has delivered a second ‘smart’ bed for the hospital’s Operating and Recovery Unit in just five months.
The latest donation brings the unit’s Stryker Stretcher tally to three following another bed, gifted by the Nambucca UHA, also in November last year.
The so-called ‘smart’ beds feature technology that helps promote safe patient handling and reduces the risk of fall-related injuries to patients. The bed can weigh patients, wirelessly connect to nurse call stations and, according to a very happy Nurse Unit Manager, Theresa Keighran, improves patient outcomes.
“We are unbelievably lucky,” Ms Keighran said.
“To have our community support us in this way really makes us the envy of perioperative and recovery units anywhere.
“These beds are intelligent in that the equipment is totally focused on patient safety in acute-care settings.
“The Op Shop volunteers amazed us back in November with their generosity, but to have them return with another of these smart, and very expensive, beds is beyond our wildest dreams.”
Op Shop manager Margaret Moule said the donation would not have been possible without her small but dedicated team of volunteers, and the community which continues to support them.
“Our little shop is certainly a fun environment to work in because of our wonderful volunteers, our donors and our shoppers,” Mrs Moule said.
“I love them all. It’s a good, fun team where everyone chips in, even on their days off.
“We all love it that the funds we raise go to our local hospital. It’s very much the story of locals helping locals.”