New community services van for Dunstan Hospital

Last year’s presidents of the four Rotary Clubs of Wanaka, Cromwell, Alexandra and Roxburgh, NZ, heard that the Central Otago Health Services Limited (COHSL) Dunstan Hospital and allied services needed to replace their community services van.

Rotary Project Coordinator Murray Kennedy tries out the lifting hoist watched by Rotarians Deans Hudson, Paul Checketts and John Rowley, with major user of the new van COHSL Therapy Assistant Sandra Booth Sandra Booth and Rotarian Jean Morgan

The van is used to transport equipment to patient's homes around the greater Central Otago and Wanaka region. The old van was past it’s use by date and no longer reliable or suitable to do the job. The van was doing about 350kms a week carting some very large and heavy items such as hospital beds and palliative mattresses, heavy wheel chairs, bed hoists, bath lifts, shower stools and a variety of other equipment for patients staying at home. A new van was going to cost between $35,000 and $45,000 by the time it was fitted out with a lifting hoist and other equipment. 
 

The then presidents - Murray Kennedy of Cromwell, Sue McGregor of Roxburgh, Paul Checketts from Alexandra, Richard Wallace from Wanaka - and their Assistant Governor Janice Hughes from Wanaka agreed in an instant that this was another very worthy cause to collaborate on. So they took the project to their individual clubs who all got behind them and started the fund raising process.
 

The clubs raised the money for the van from various fundraising activities, including book sales in Cromwell and Wanaka and a charity dinner in Alexandra. Rotary District 9980 also contributed some funding from The Rotary Foundation. 
 

The lifting hoist was funded and installed by The Friends of Dunstan Hospital group.
 

This is the second project in recent times where these four Rotary Clubs have joined forces to assist the hospital provide better services to our community. The last project was for the CT Scanner Suite.
 

The new van finally arrived last November and the hoist was fitted to make it a much better, more reliable and safer vehicle for the COHSL community services staff to use.
 

Project Coordinator Mr Kennedy said, “It’s not all Rotary. We are just the conduit. We raise the money from our community to help others deliver better services for our community. So it really is just our community helping itself albeit somewhat indirectly. But that’s just what is so great about living here in Central Otago and the Wanaka area – we have great community spirit and support.”
 

Allied Health Services Manager at Central Otago Health Services Limited Chris Brown said; “We are delighted with our new van and extremely grateful to all the Rotary clubs who put so much time and effort into raising the funds. We are indeed fortunate to be providing health services in an area where the community offers such extensive practical support.”