Margaret contacted me and invited me to speak to the ladies, who themselves have recently celebrated 60 years as a club – originally called the ‘Young Wives Club’ but as time has moved on, just the Wives Club as they didn’t think they could pass for being anything other than young at heart now.
I shared with the ladies details about our charity and the many initiatives that we help fund as a charity, including the MRI Appeal. I shared with them news about a young artist who has helped to paint a mural on the wall of the Children’s Emergency Department, helping to create a warm and welcoming environment, the purchase of special ‘ear muffs’ that actually help our consultants to detect hearing impairment in very young children, the purchase of sepsis trolley’s and of course another big appeal for our hospital in Durham to build an extension for the chemotherapy unit.
We discussed at length the difficulties we encountered in changing the 18 year old scanner for the new state of the art technology, removing part of the roof of Darlington Memorial, going through five floors to crane out the old machine before we could crane in the new one, all the remedial work, the installation of the hardware and software and of course the education of our staff to be able to use the new equipment.
We scan over 1000 people every single day in our Trust and the new equipment helps our consultants with earlier diagnosis of many life threatening or life limiting conditions. We all know that earlier diagnosis can help to save lives.
Pat Chambers Charity Development Manager for CDDFT Charity said, ‘I was delighted to come and speak with Margaret and the ladies at the Wives Club and blown away with their generosity as they presented us with a cheque for £120. I’m overjoyed to receive this support, we’ve still some weeks to go before we pay the final invoice for the scanner and this continued support is so greatly appreciated.
If you can help by donating, fundraising or volunteering for the MRI Scanner Appeal, please call Pat Chambers on 07770455651
Photo: Margaret Willis (r) and Evelyn Bellwood (l) from the Wives Club at Newton Aycliffe Methodist Church in Neville Way.
