Wheelchairs donated to Wick hospital by Caithness Disabled Access Panel

Thanks to the efforts of a local disability support group, Caithness General Hospital (CGH) now has an additional two wheelchairs for visitors to use.

Chair of Caithness Disabled Access Panel (CDAP), Helen Budge, said that the chairs are for the use of disabled visitors to the hospital who can ask at reception for one to be found.

After the presentation on June 13 in which CDAP members handed over the wheelchairs, Mrs Budge said: "Today the hospital has finally received the chairs badly needed by disabled people to visit their loved ones or to use for their clinics if they find it difficult to walk to and need pushed by their carers."

Mrs Budge said that the disabled panel was asked to do an access survey on CGH by Eric Green (head of estates at NHS Highland) and Pam Garbe (rural general hospital manager at CGH) to look at the changes they have made to the hospital in February. She says that CDAP was "delighted to see the changes" made to the maternity unit and the new bays for treatment for various conditions needing infusions.

Mr Green told the CDAP group about new changes yet to be made to toilets and the new emergency unit which will be sited at the back of the building. During the presentation, panel members asked if wheelchairs were provided for disabled people to visit relatives in hospital as "it wasn’t always easy to bring wheelchairs unless you had a carer", Mrs Budge explained.

She added: "The ones in the hospital are used by the porters to take people between appointments but are very clumsy to push if you are elderly. It was agreed by Pam Garbe that it would be very beneficial for visitors to have the use of these special wheelchairs which are easy to push for visitors."

At at meeting following the visit, the panel applied for a grant from Disability Equality Scotland – an umbrella group which obtains money from the government to fund disabled panels all over Scotland and gives grants for worthy projects.

"Pam said the two wheelchairs would be in the lobby so that a carer can come in and go out and collect their user to come into the hospital on the chair. We thank the hospital for obtaining these wheelchairs on our behalf."

On behalf of CDAP, Mrs Budge also thanked Alan Tait from Caithness Voluntary Group who has shown dedicated support for the panel and "keeps us running as an efficient group".

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