Recent Success stories

Marathon of the Sands

Paul Gladwell and Martin Edwards from St. Vincent’s information technology team entered the world’s toughest endurance race, the Marathon des Sables, and led a unique fundraising campaign. Both Martin and Paul have lost close family members to cancer and have been supported by the cancer services team at St. Vincent’s. The campaign, themed Seven Days in the Sahara, received widespread support and donations from around the world via a website that broadcast news from the early training stages through to the event itself. St. Vincent’s staff pledged thousands of dollars, ran special events and encouraged others to support the campaign. Our corporate partners sponsored the runners and donors and past patients gave generously. They raised funds for The Retreat, based at St. Vincent’s, where our cancer services staff provide psychological and social support and care for patients and families. To date, over $150,000 has been raised.

For More information visit http://www.7daysinthesahara.com

St. Vincent's Golf Classic

Metropolitan Golf Club hosted the annual St. Vincent’s Golf Classic, supported by our principal sponsor RACV Insurance and 25 supporting sponsors. The event raised over $150,000 and we thank RACV Insurance for their generous sponsorship. Ian Cover, from the ‘Coodabeen Champions’ was MC for the Classic Dinner and Kevin Sheedy was guest speaker. All funds raised were directed to the Dept of Orthopaedics and Professor Peter Choong shared some insights into this highly specialised field of surgery and new treatments for osteosarcoma, an area of cancer care for which Professor Choong’s team is receiving international recognition.

RACV Insurance

The Foundation’s fundraising appeals program highlighted specific areas of need in improving patient care and advancing medical research. Many important initiatives were supported by past patients, donors, community groups and philanthropic trusts during the year. They include:

Addiction Medicine
This unique and specialised service attracted strong support from major philanthropic trusts. The Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation, the Ian Potter Foundation and the John T Reid Charitable Trust together donated over $300,000 to this service.

New technology
We thank the L.E.W. Carty Charitable Fund, Perpetual Trustees, the Collier Charitable Fund, the Harold and Cora Brennen Foundation, the Eric Ormond Baker Charitable Fund and Equity Trustees for their support, which enabled us to introduce the latest in medical technology at St. Vincent’s. Through their generous support, new acquisitions included a 3D portable ultrasound and echocardiograph machine for the emergency department, a live 3D trans-oesophageal echocardiograph (TOE) probe and a chromosome analysis station for leukaemia research.

Psychiatric Medication Information – Multi-lingual Guides for Patients & Carers Booklet
The Scanlon Foundation and Pierce Armstrong Foundation have funded the production, roll-out and evaluation of culturally sensitive and linguistically appropriate education about mental health.
Booklets have been produced in Chinese, Vietnamese, Italian and Greek, which together with monthly medication information forums for each language group aim to enhance clients’ understanding of and adherence to treatment.

The Appeal shared the story of Jacqui, a forty year old cardiac patient who talked about her experience in the cardiac investigation unit when doctors and technicians worked around her using the latest equipment to diagnose her condition. Jacquie’s story helped us to raise funds for vital life saving equipment.