Rotary Club of Sandwich donates £10,000 to local cancer care

Rotary Club of Sandwich donates £10,000 to help provide cancer care in local communities.

The Rotary Club of Sandwich has donated £10,000 to charity Hope for Tomorrow to support local cancer patients. Hope for Tomorrow helps East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust by providing mobile cancer care units so that it can provide cancer treatment closer to where patients live.

The trust has had a mobile cancer care unit since 2012. It was named Caron, after Gloria Hunniford’s late daughter Caron Keating, who died from breast cancer in 2004. Last year, a new, upgraded Caron unit was launched to replace the original, after 10 years of successful service. Since their introduction, the mobile cancer care units have provided over 16,500 treatments to cancer patients in the East Kent area.

Hope for Tomorrow, East Kent NHS, Sandwich Rotary Club 1

Rotary Club of Sandwich donates £10,000 to help provide cancer care in local communities.

The Rotary Club of Sandwich has donated £10,000 to charity Hope for Tomorrow to support local cancer patients. Hope for Tomorrow helps East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust by providing mobile cancer care units so that it can provide cancer treatment closer to where patients live.

The trust has had a mobile cancer care unit since 2012. It was named Caron, after Gloria Hunniford’s late daughter Caron Keating, who died from breast cancer in 2004. Last year, a new, upgraded Caron unit was launched to replace the original, after 10 years of successful service. Since their introduction, the mobile cancer care units have provided over 16,500 treatments to cancer patients in the East Kent area.

A mobile cancer care unit is just like a hospital treatment room, with four treatment chairs, chemotherapy pump stands, and medical storage facilities. It is equipped with air conditioning and a cooling and heating system for patient comfort, as well as a toilet and kitchen. It is complemented with a nurse support vehicle, a car which provides transport for the trust’s nurses to travel to and from the unit with medication and supplies. The donation from the Rotary Club will fund the vehicle for four years and also provide an onboard printer on the unit.

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We are lucky to have Caron

Ray Stephens, President of the Rotary Club of Sandwich, said: “Having had friends and colleagues that have been touched by cancer, it is good that there is a system that can alleviate the stresses and worry of travelling and hospital appointments at such a difficult time. We are lucky to have Caron, the Hope for Tomorrow unit in Kent.”

The donation is as the result of a project between the Rotary Clubs of Sandwich, Armentiere in France, Renaix in Belgium and Bocholt in Germany in 2022.

Christine Rushforth, Hope for Tomorrow’s, Community Fundraising Manager, said: “We’re very grateful to the Rotary Club for their wonderful donation, which will make a big difference to cancer patients in the area. The unit and car allow the nursing teams to deliver treatment to patients in Cheriton, Dover and Herne Bay, saving them long trips to Kent and Canterbury Hospital. It makes a difficult time for patients that much easier, with 70% of patients saying they can tolerate their treatment more easily on a mobile cancer care unit and 50% that they were more likely to complete their full course of treatment.”