POST office box key holders are among donors helping buy medical equipment for Cooktown Hospital, including two patient monitoring devices bought thanks to several volunteer fundraising initiatives.
Cooktown Hospital Friends of the Foundation president Daphne Fenton said when people forget their post office key, they give a gold coin donation – which goes towards the pot of funds raised throughout the community.
“Our biggest fundraiser is our biannual fete, which is well supported by residents and surrounding communities,” Ms Fenton said.
“Our business houses are extremely generous with their support, which allows us to run a successful event.”
Cooktown Multipurpose Health Service Community Health Nurse Unit Manager Narelle Stokes thanked the community for its generous support.
The two iSTAT devices, worth a combined $20,000, allow the local renal unit and community health to undertake point-of-care testing without having to borrow iSTATS from the acute hospital.
iSTATs are used to measure blood gases, acid-base, electrolytes, chemistries and haematology.
“For community health, it allows us to provide an additional service to the community and reduce the patients returning to the Emergency Department to have these tests done,” Ms Stokes said.
“For the renal unit, it allows the team to easily access a point-of-care pathology result for regular and/or emergent monitoring of their clients.
“This gives the ability to speak with the medical team or nephrologist with the latest results.”
The Cooktown Hospital Friends of the Foundation is a subsidiary of the Far North Queensland Hospital Foundation, a local charity that has raised more than $27 million for the region since its inception in 1997.
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