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‘Carry on collecting’ urges hospice nurse
CARING ... St Clares clinical nurse manager Vicky Bracey.
A NURSE is calling on the people of South Tyneside to help pull a hospice out of its cash crisis.
Vicky Bracey is clinical nurse manager at St Clare’s Hospice, Jarrow, which is facing a £50,000 budget shortfall.
She said that if the hospice had to close down or cut back on services, it would be a sad day for the borough.
The 43-year-old said: “It’s important that we at St Clare’s provide this service to the local community. It would be a sad thing if we couldn’t do that any more.
“It’s a huge part of the community, and we offer such a wide range of services and see all sorts of different patients.”
She added: “I absolutely love working at St Clare’s. I love the patient contact and the relationship we build up with the families. It would be sad if we don’t get the funding we need, especially if services have to be cut.”
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE FOR ST CLARE’S
Our turn to show we care for St Clare’sHow you can help St Clare’s Hospice’It’s all about giving people dignity’Family’s appeal as face of our campaign dies
The hospice in Primrose Terrace, Jarrow, provides palliative care to the people of South Tyneside with life-limiting illnesses.
It has annual running costs of £2m. It has to raise £1.4m of that through fundraising and charitable donations.
But this year it is facing a £50,000 shortfall and the Gazette is hoping to plug the gap with our c/o St Clare’s appeal.
Vicky, a mum-of-one, who lives in Marsden, South Shields, has worked at the hospice for nearly 11 years, starting with a secondment as a staff nurse.
She said: “I think there’s some misconceptions about St Clare’s. Some people, who haven’t been here, think it’s somewhere that people just come to die. But we do so much more.
“We look after in-patients and daycare patients, offer complementary therapies, physiotherapy, counselling and have a lymphedema clinic and a chaplaincy.
“It’s a home from home for a lot of people. We like to make it as comfortable as we can for them.”
She added: “The day care patients can talk to each other about their illnesses, or leave it all behind them, and just come in and have fun.
“I just hope that people get behind us so that we can continue to do what we do.
“It’s really important that the funding is there to support the wonderful range of services we offer.
“If it wasn’t for the local community we wouldn’t be able to do what we do. We could never do it by ourselves.”
Twitter: @ShieldsGazVicki
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Weather for Jarrow
Tuesday 22 May 2012
Today
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Temperature: 8 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
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Sunny spells
Temperature: 10 C to 17 C
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