£30,000 helps patients access life-saving equipment more quickly
Southend Hospital’s critical care storage facilities have been transformed with a generous donation of £30,000 from St John’s Church, Southend, to help staff access life-saving equipment more quickly.
The new specially-designed racking, which cost £15,834, can be moved on tracks doubling the essential storage space for vital equipment to treat patients.
Sarah Martin, senior sister on critical care, explained how it’s made a huge difference to staff and patients. Sarah said: “We are just so thankful to St Johns Church for their incredibly generous donation and everyone at critical care is so grateful for their support.
“The equipment is now easy to get to, especially in an emergency, where you can grab anything really quickly and easily. It also means we’re able to stock more items.”
Allen Littlejohn, a volunteer chaplain at Southend Hospital and church warden at St Johns Church, coordinated the donation on behalf of the church.
He said: “The work that the critical care team are doing is essential, but also the whole hospital from nurses and doctors to admin support and porters. They have all been affected in some way by the pandemic and if we can make things a little bit easier for the critical care team then I’m more than happy to do that.”
The remaining money was used to fund care packages and essentials for the critical care unit in the fight against COVID-19.