MITCHELL CLAN ROLL OUT THE BARROW FOR CANCER CARE HUB
A MAREEBA family touched by the outstanding care at Cairns Hospital’s cancer ward is now giving back to the team who did so much to help their mother.
Wendy Mitchell, mother of three and wife to Dean Mitchell, died of pancreatic cancer in January.
To honour her memory, the men of her family have formed Wendy’s Joker Joes.
The team has raised $8765 towards the Far North Queensland Hospital Foundation’s Cancer Care Hub, and will compete at the 2023 Wheelbarrow Race.
Mr Mitchell, along with his sons Dwayne and Brent, will take the wheel and compete as a trio in the annual threeday race covering 140km from Mareeba to Chillagoe. while daughter Nadine Cockrem said she would be in charge of all admin work and “putting food in everybody”.
Ms Cockrem remembered her mother as an extremely hardworking woman who always had a way of looking at things brighter.
“We phoned the hospital after mum’s passing as we wanted to do the wheelbarrow race in her honour and to raise money specifically for the ward itself,” she said.
“We then found out about the hospital launching its own campaign for the cancer care ward so it was perfect timing.”
Ms Mitchell died on January 27 this year at 58, 12 years after her first bout of cancer treatment.
FNQ Hospital Foundation fundraising and marketing manager Glenys Duncombe said Ms Mitchell’s story was heartbreaking.
“It’s families like this that we want to help and we will,” she said.
The campaign is expected to result in more chemotherapy chairs, an increased pharmacy capacity to make chemo on-site, and relocating the Cancer Care Ward to level 2 of D Block at Cairns Hospital, making it more accessible to the Liz Plummer Cancer Care Centre.