Rotary helps hospital with new equipment

THE Bacchus Marsh Hospital has taken delivery of more than $11,000 of new equipment thanks to the local Rotary club.

The items, selected by the hospital and paid for by the Bacchus Marsh Rotary Club, have been ordered and put into use over about a month.

Rotary president David Wright and community committee chair Davina Cabrie visited the hospital last week to meet staff of various departments using the equipment.

The seven items identified by the hospital covered three separate departments and were bought for a total of $11,600.

Ms Cabrie said the departments were the medical surgical unit, the maternity ward, the emergency department, the education department and the operating theatre.

“We wanted to help the hospital out, so we approached them (about what equipment was needed),” she said.

“They gave us a list and we were able to provide all the things on the list.”

On the list was an ‘IV Arm’, a simulation tool that staff can use to practice taking blood and inserting IV lines.

“All they had before that was one injection arm for classes and people they were teaching,” Ms Cabrie said.

“And you might have 12 people in a (learning) group, so obviously that’s quite difficult.”

Ms Cabrie, a former nurse, said that all the items listed by the hospital would indeed be useful.

“We agreed on the items, they got the invoices and we paid them,” she said. “They were things they thought would be really helpful to the various departments.”

Ms Cabrie said the club hoped to do more to help the hospital in the future.

Items for the education and maternity department were the IV Arm; an episiotomy trainer for training midwives in episiotomy techniques; an episiotomy replacement incision pad for midwife training; a pack of 10 injection trainers (a simulation tool that staff can use to practice giving injections) and an ostomy trainer, another simulation tool to familiarise staff with correct ostomy care techniques.

The medical surgical unit received a Viking patient walking tutor, an aid that will help patients to safely and comfortably mobilise early, while the operating theatre and emergency department received a portable video laryngoscope.

That item is a critical tool that can be easily transported to a patient and which enables medical staff to clearly visualise a patient’s airway during intubation before surgery or in an emergency.

For his part, Mr Wright said he had been keen to help the hospital because he and his wife had a very positive experience during the birth of their daughter there in May.

Mr Wright said the staff and care at the hospital were “amazing in every way” and that midwives were willing to spend as much time with them as necessary.