One week left to raise R4.4m for Red Cross

THERE is only one week left before the Red Cross Hospital Trust’s public appeal to raise funds for the building of the state-of-the-art paediatric intensive care unit comes to an end, and the project still needs R4.4 million urgently.

But the project, which aims to raise the last R10m of the multimillion-rand project before the end of this month, received a little boost this week after medical students at the University of Pretoria raised just more than R23 000.

In April, the Tuks Children’s Hospital Trust Student Organisation started rolling out a project to get students to tap into giving like never before.

The campaign, which challenged students to fill up the “Red Cross Pig” with spare change, raised R23 066 two months later.

Gabriel Nel, a final-year medical student who was involved in the fundraising, described the fundraising project as “incredibly impressive”, and said that although the student group aimed to fund-raise only R5 000, “we were really supported by the student community who went far out of their way for the cause and truly committed to our fundraising campaign”.

“Having been involved in numerous similar activities before, I have truly found the response in this project’s case the most impressive to date.”

The building project also received R13 000 from the proceeds of the annual Circle of Life high tea held at Kelvin Grove this month.

The aim of the high tea, this year, was to celebrate the Red Cross Children’s Hospital’s 60th Anniversary. For the past four months, the trust has been encouraging South Africans to open their purses and donate towards the project.

The construction of the ICU, which started last October, is expected to be completed by the end of next year. The 22-bed facility will increase to 39 bed spaces, and will include an urgently needed 10-bed high care Neonatal Unit as well as isolation cubicles.

The high care unit and the isolation cubicles will ensure optimal treatment through better infection control, which is critical in ICU.

SMS your name and pledge amount to 072 674 4101, or SMS ICU to 40465 to donate R20.

Visit childrenshospitaltrust.org.za for more information on the project.