Sheffield Leukaemia and Blood Disorders appeal
Monday 25th May 2007
Sheffield Hospitals Charitable Trust is launching its first ever fundraising appeal. The Sheffield Leukaemia and Blood Disorders Appeal aims to raise at least £150,000 to equip new wards within the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield.
There are three key areas of the leukaemia and other blood disorder wards that will benefit from the appeal:
- The appeal will fully equip the planned new wards with everything they need to operate effectively. This includes providing items such as ECG machines, vital signs monitoring units, drip stands, treatment tables, oxygen machines and defibrillators.
- In addition to providing essential equipment, the appeal has a focus on improving the environment and quality of life for patients who are often kept on the ward, often in total isolation, for weeks and even months on end. Therefore the appeal will also provide items such as comfortable reclining chairs for patients receiving treatment, flat screen tvs, furniture for a new dayroom and attractive artwork.
- The appeal will also fund items such as Playstations and PCs for a new teenage unit. The younger patients need an area to call their own, that suits their particular needs. These patients often struggle to adapt to adult hospital wards, which can have an adverse effect on their recovery.
This appeal will change the lives of the many people within South Yorkshire and the surrounding areas, diagnosed with leukaemia, or another blood disorder, each year.
The wards within the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, that care for these patients, will be transformed, making the patient experience a much more pleasant one, and there will be enough new space and equipment so that more patients can be treated, and treated more efficiently.
Many patients stay in isolation rooms following treatment due to the severe risk of infection. These patients are kept away from family and friends, staring at the same four walls for weeks on end. Not only that but they feel incredibly ill for the entire time. Whilst this appeal won’t necessarily make the treatment anymore pleasant, it will improve the surroundings for these patients, enabling them to relax more easily and therefore aid recovery.
The appeal will also allow far more patients to be treated each year and has important knock-on effects for improved infection control, and reducing the number of patients that have to be admitted as in-patients.