I lost both of my parents, within a sixteen-week period in 2018, which obviously caused me and my family immense emotional turmoil. My parents died from unrelated conditions and were treated by the A&E Departments of two different NHS Hospitals.  During this time, we saw at first-hand how the staff working in these Departments, on a day to day basis, need as much help and support to continue providing this invaluable service as we can provide.

To help me come to terms with the loss of my parents so quickly, and suddenly, I have decided to challenge myself to run the Brighton Marathon, in April 2020 to raise much needed funds to help Hampshire Medical Fund purchase The Drager Infinity Acute Care System. This provides a modular monitoring system for critically ill patients. This piece of equipment is like the Rolls Royce to Emergency Care departments and can be an enormous help when managing very sick patients as it was in my Mum’s case.

When used within Basingstoke Hospital’s Resuscitation area, this will save time, improve monitoring and increase safety by reducing the complex equipment required for their most unwell patients. Over 8,000 adults and 500 children per year would benefit from the system and this would free up staff to carry out other critical activities.

The reason I have chosen this charity is the support and professionalism of Dr Louisa Chan.  She has been a source of great comfort to me at a very emotionally challenging time. The specialist care that she provided my Mum, during her short illness, was both sensitive and compassionate at a time when she was under great pressure to deal with a number of cases.

Running the Brighton Marathon will be the most demanding challenge I will have attempted in my 52 years. Whilst I like to keep myself fit by attending the Gym, undertaking PT sessions and Umpiring elite Netball Matches throughout the UK, I am most definitely not a long-distance runner! The most I have run in one go, so far, is 10K and my little legs certainly felt that so the training miles ahead to reach my goal are going to be extremely tough.

Any help and support you can give me in reaching my fund-raising goal to spur me on with my training, in the cold winter months, would be gratefully received.