General News
15 December, 2023
Hospital trolley now dissolved
AFTER a long history of providing both essentials and basics to local patients, in hospitals and nursing homes, the Camperdown Hospital Trolley has put the brakes on its trolley wheels.
The committee recently decided to cease operations due to a lower capacity to donate a viable amount to the South West Healthcare Camperdown Campus, Sunnyside House and Merindah Lodge through its sales.
Volunteer Barb Boyd has spent some time looking back through the historical stocktaking books of the trolley, which go as far back as June 1964.
“It was part of the youth committee; it was just serving the patients with what the patients wanted,” she said.
“It’s what the patients would be after, especially those that didn’t have relatives in this area.
“It was just the hospital for a start, but I found books from when it started at Sunnyside.
“It was Tuesdays and Thursdays; it was twice a week at the hospital, fortnightly at Sunnyside, and weekly at Merindah.”
Noela McCann, who volunteered towards the end of the trolley’s time, said the groups sold items to those who could not go out and do shopping themselves.
“The trolley was loaded up with goods, and the volunteers walked through the hospital and nursing home and sold these bits and pieces,” she said.
“Then, when we made profits at the end of the year, we may have had some money in the funds, we would donate something to a hospital or nursing home.”
The hospital trolley provided access to basics such as toiletries, stationary and tissues, as well as treats such as chewing gum and a variety of sweets.
Ms Boyd said it provided necessary access for those who may have been in a rush or isolated from family.
“Some people don’t have family around, and yet there’s all the basic toiletries that they need,” she said.
“If they go into hospital suddenly, or something like that, there was no way else they could get the basics.”
A popular item for the trolley were thank you cards for new mothers, who often stayed in hospital for up to 10 days and did correspondence from their hospital bed.
However, Ms Boyd said she was surprised and amused when she found records of sales for 116 boxes of matches, 16 packets of Turf cigarettes, 39 packets of Escort cigarettes and 28 packets of Craven A cigarettes.
“These were just hysterical; this was back in 1965,” she said.
“People won’t believe it these days.
“They were about roughly three and a half shillings each.”
Ms Boyd said the trolley services has worked hard over its lifespan to provide patients with the basics.
“Back in the early days, it was like a real business because the little entry books and things were entered and banked a couple of times a week; the treasurer was very busy and very diligent, although the current one still is,” she said.
“When the money was donated back to the hospital, Merindah Lodge or Sunnyside, it usually came from a wish list from the staff as to what pieces of machinery or what pieces of equipment or anything that they needed at the time.
“We’ve had lots of fundraisers over the years, and a lot of businesses have been very helpful and supportive and made donations to us, so we can donate to the hospital.”
Ms McCann said the trolley rotated donations between Sunnyside House, Merindah Lodge and the hospital.
“In the last few years where I have been around, it’s been money towards midwifery beds, money towards some monitors, whether they were heart monitors and things like that,” she said.
Ms McCann said COVID restrictions made the work of the hospital trolley harder, but she was happy to have been part of the group.
“When the group formed, it was to help out those people that were vulnerable and weren’t able to do their shopping, but it was also something that the volunteers got a lot out of as well,” she said.
“There were great rewards from it.”
Ms Boyd said part of the reason for dissolving the trolley was the “changing world” off the back of COVID and the viability of the business.
“You can completely understand those people who are at high-risk don’t want any unnecessary contact,” she said.
“Thank you to the community for supporting us so we could support the three venues over the years.”
Read More: Camperdown