Care package for Merseyside Emergency Department

Many of you may recall the tragic events of December 16th 2021 in Hillcrest primary School Tasmania, where a freak

weather event resulted in the loss of life of 6 children aged 11 and 12 years. They played on a bouncy castle celebrating

their last day of primary schooling before the exciting transition to high school. Sadly a transition they would never make.

In an Emergency Department similar to ours, the staff were having a regular Thrusday, and then found themselves dealing with a mass casualty event involving children from their local community.

This could have been any ED in the country. The ripple effect of the tragedy extends far beyond the staff on shift at the

time, but to the whole of the department and the wider hospital community, and their families.

Christmas of 2021 will have been unimagineably challenging for many of our colleagues in that department. Life going

forward will never be the same.

I recall a fabulous group of colleagues at a small community hospital where I trained in 2003, some 7 years following the Dunblane primary massacre with the loss of life of 16 little ones. The scars of that day and the burden of the loss still

weighed heavily on many of the acute care staff who had been involved at the time.

I am fundraising within our ED at Noarlunga in the hope of being able to gift the ED staff at Merseyside Community

Hospital a pre-paid VISA card with funds that they can put towards a social event for the department. This might in

some small way allow for debriefing and recovery for the group. Perhaps a Christmas in July type theme, or pay for

agency staff so that the regular staff can get together and share some laughs.

If you have any funds, regardless how small, please consider donating.

If an electronic platform does not suit then please hang onto the cash and I will get it from you at the end of June.

Many thanks

Kerry