Hi everyone, thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

My sister and I have decided to run the great north run to support a local charity. The friends of the BGH have pledged to raise £70,000 to support the building of the Margaret Kerr Unit. The unit will be a specialist palliative care unit providing dignified end of life care to the patients of the Borders region. The total build cost is over £4 million and the push to raise the final £500,000 of this is currently underway.

I remember caring for my Dad during his final weeks following his battle with bowel cancer. As a family we were fortunate enough to be able to support his wish to stay at home through this period with excellent support from the district nursing team and the Macmillan nurses as well as a very good family GP. This experience showed me first hand how important it is to get end of life care right and provide people with a dignified and well managed experience at this very difficult time.This is why I believe that provision of specialist units such as the Margaret Kerr Unit are so important, in order to provide this specialised individual care rather than patients and their family having to spend this period in a hospital ward environment not designed for the purpose.

Having recently also lost our Mum in recent weeks suddenly and unexpectedly we have decided that we want to complete this run in memory of both her and Dad and I know that she approved of the charity we are running for having discussed it with her just shortly before she passed away.

Therefore I would like to personally thank you for taking the time to donate/sponsor me for this event, every penny counts and will help us to raise the required amount to allow the unit to be completed!

Thanks again,

Gavin

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