Shoalhaven Hospital’s emergency department will soon be better equipped to assist sick children.
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The Shoalhaven KidzFix team donated more than $18,000 to purchase a new monitor for the children’s emergency ward on Wednesday, October 10.
KidzFix spokesman Tony Emery said Manildra had also donated enough to fund a second monitor, with both to be installed by the end of the year.
“At the moment there are four beds and two monitors, so there is potentially two children without a monitor at a time,” he said.
“This is a really essential bit of kit, in the adults emergency ward, there’s a monitor for every bed."
Shoalhaven hospital emergency department nurse unit manager Wendy Fetchet said the monitors would make a huge difference to the “often forgotten” children’s emergency ward.
“Having four monitors has been a goal of ours for a really long time,” she said.
“Paediatric management in emergency is often forgotten so I think the reason we’ve been identified is because we have a nurse and ambulance officer involved in KidzFix who know the management of sick children is critical.”
Though the paediatric emergency ward has existed for about 15 years, Ms Fetchet said there was never any funding to purchase the monitors.
“We cannot get this equipment without community support,” she said.
“I’ve been in this role for 28 years and it’s so rewarding for me to see how involved the community has become in fundraising for the hospital.”
Mr Emery said this year’s KidzFix Rally raised more than $72,000.
Next year, the Shoalhaven branch of the charity hopes to provide more essential equipment for the paediatric ward at Milton Hospital, while also purchasing three state-of-the-art cots for Shoalhaven Hospital.
“With the help of a lot of local businesses we are trying to do as much as we can for our hospitals," Mr Emery said.
