Local charity respond to NHS appeal for crutches

A local charity have responded to an NHS appeal to return crutches by making their own special donation.

The White Feather Project in Middlesbrough, whose focus is on helping reduce food poverty in the area, handed over 40 brand new pairs of crutches to North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust.

Urgent care centre

Mark Horkan and Karen Beck from the group visited the team in the urgent care centre at the University Hospital of North Tees recently.

This is after the Trust made an appeal for patients to return crutches they had taken home and no longer needed.

Mark said: “We saw the appeal and wanted to do something to help.

“They will help make a difference to our local health trust.

“We are an organisation focussed on delivering emergency food care packages to people who are vulnerable, helping people with disabilities and collecting donations in our local areas to distribute to people in need.

“We team up with other organisations and bring our community together, just as we have done here.”

Grateful

Nicola Grieves, clinical lead for urgent care, said more than 50 pairs of crutches had been returned to the service since the appeal was launched at the start of the month.

She said: “We are so grateful to the White Feather Project for their fantastic donation and to our community for responding so brilliantly to our appeal.

“Due to coronavirus, we have had a real decline in the number of crutches being returned so this response had really helped increase our supplies.

“All pairs returned are then professionally cleaned and issued to patients in need.

“Thank you again to everyone who has helped – any more returns can be dropped at either of our urgent care centres at North Tees or Hartlepool.”