Zoe Brown (Radio DJ & TV Presenter) with Cadi Chloe de Jager, an 8-year-old past patient and champion for the ICU campaign. (Image and Video: CH Trust)
A fishing company is contributing to medical assistance for children who need specialised care and urgent surgery.
Sea Harvest has contributed R300 000 to the Children’s Hospital Trust, the official fundraiser of the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, in Cape Town, as part of its Kids for Kids initiative. The initiative has been running for six years; through it, a portion of the sales of selected Sea Harvest crumbed fish products are donated to the trust.
The latest contribution brings the amount donated to the trust so far to R1.6-million since the Kids for Kids initiative was launched.
“Often we consider the state of the world and the pain and suffering that others experience and we feel powerless,” said Jared Patel, Sea Harvest’s marketing manager. “However, each year we inform consumers about the drive, which usually runs from November to February, to provide them with an opportunity to be a part of this initiative.
“Since 2010, Sea Harvest’s Kids for Kids initiative has donated funds to the trust for various projects at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital, including a surgical skills training centre, a general medical ward, a new medical imaging complex, and a Childsafe Research and Educational Centre.”
The funds donated will go towards an upgraded and expanded paediatric intensive care unit (ICU), the largest such unit for children in Africa.
It currently has 22 beds for critically ill or injured children who come for specialised care and emergency surgeries from South Africa and other African countries. The demands on this unit are higher than its capacity to deliver.
Thanks to donations from Sea Harvest and others, the first of four sections in the expanded ICU will be opened next month and the full ICU will be ready in October 2017.
“There is a dire need to expand the ICU to accommodate up to 39 beds, which includes a 10-bed high care unit for neonatal patients and the establishment of eight isolation cubicles,” said Louise Driver, the trust’s CEO.
“It is not only the increased amount of beds that is essential, but also the provision of more space around beds to comfortably accommodate critical life-saving equipment. Thanks to donors like Sea Harvest, we are able to fund important projects like this that ultimately help to save children’s lives.”
Watch Cadi, who has personally experienced being sick at a tender age, speak about the ICU campaign. She is so passionate about it, she has taken on the fundraising as a personal crusade and is the youngest champion ever of the Children’s Hospital Trust.
