Sunday 19 April 2015

A year of concerns

Last year staffing concerns caused us a few worries. Our physiotherapist left , quickly followed by our oxygen nurse. Soon after that another nurse was absent on long term sickness then, just before Christmas, another nurse was on compassionate leave. What had been a busy team of five was reduced to just one. Respiratory nursing is so specialised, they can't fill these gaps easily. Back-up was pulled in from around the locality, with various people filling the gaps to keep the service going. Our respiratory team has run a good program of home care, pulmonary rehab, hospital clinics etc. over many years, and has continued to do so over the last few months by carefully prioritising needs and careful management of available staff.
Chris Burrows our lead respiratory nurse, and Fiona Reynolds, Head of Nursing in ABMUHB (Abertawe Bro Morganwg University Health Board) came to our Breathe Easy meeting on Friday, to talk through all these issues with us. We had all been worried that we couldn't see how only one or two people could do the work of five with widely differing skills. Happily now a new physiotherapist has begun work, someone has taken over oxygen assessment and another nurse has returned to her post, so things are not quite so frantic.
Let's hope for a calmer year ahead.

Monday 6 April 2015

Our 9th abseil event - 2015



We couldn't have asked for a better day. After the recent wet, cold and windy weather, we woke up to warm sunshine on Sunday morning. Here are two of our stewards getting ready to help people get their abseiling kit on, man the car park, calm nerves and do other duties that stewards do.
Twenty four adults and three children took part. Half of them have already collected their sponsor money, totalling £2,570 so far - what will the final figure be ? Who knows, only time will tell.
 




Here, a team of family and friends are kitted up and ready to go. Are they viewing the rock with anticipation or anxiety - a bit of both I suppose.






The three children all have big grins, so they found it good fun on the day.

 
Over the years we have raised just over £40,000 for British Lung Foundation to help them in their vital work in combatting lung disease and the causes of lung disease.
 
 




Here we have a group of fundraisers ready for their big adventure.


 Dave, the expert from call of the Wild, gives the first group their pep talk, before climbing to the top, ready for the descent. It's quicker going down than climbing up.


 

Becks from Call of the Wild works with the children.  They all had a great time and came down the rock with big smiles on their faces.

Call of the Wild have supported us free of charge for nine years now. St John's Ambulance and Natural Resources Wales both waived their fee to support our fundraising and Bob Grainger took photographs for keyrings and fridge magnets and he has made a donation - also he lets me use his pictures on this blog and the BLF website. These two pictures of the children are his. Thanks to all these people for their support.

 
If you would like to donate to help us raise money for research into lung disease and to help fund other necessary work, go to  https://www.justgiving.com/BE-Neath-abseil to find our justgiving page.