Donation helps to train neonatal nurses

Cheque handover: Albert Coates Memorial Trust members, Leckie family representatives and BHS staff met in April at the Sir Albert Coates statue on Sturt Street. Photo: SUPPLIED

A SCHOLARSHIP funded by the Albert Coates Memorial Trust is supporting Ballarat Health Services’ neonatal nurses’ professional development.

In April, the Leckie family, represented by Neil and Kay, met with Trustees and BHS to donate $50,000 to the Trust, boosting this Neonatal Nursing Scholarship’s funds.

BHS Director of clinical education and practice Denielle Beardmore said the money will assist advanced training of nurses caring for “neonates requiring special nursing care;” some of the most vulnerable patients.

The Leckie family said they were “delighted” to help. Albert Coates Memorial Trust member Desley Beechey said trustees were pleased to “add this scholarship to others which are supported by the Trust.”

“These advance training for many aspects of emergency care in the region,” she said.

The Albert Coates Memorial Trust assists students to access regional tertiary education in the areas of nursing and medicine.

“It operates in recognition of Sir Albert Coates OBE who served in Gallipoli during World War One as a medical orderly, was a senior Australian Army surgeon in World War Two, and a prisoner of war, captured by the Japanese.

While imprisoned, he was a surgeon on allied POWs who were working to construct the Burma-Thailand Railway.