Barry Thompson
RetCam Fundraising page
Fundraising for WISHH (Working Independently to Support Hull Hospitals)
Story
A RetCam is a sophisticated digital camera that takes photographs of the backs of babies and young children's eyes (retinas).
It is used to monitor premature babies eyes for a condition called Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) which can quickly cause blindness in premature babies.
It can be used to check 'shaken' babies eyes and for the children's eye cancer, Retinoblastoma.
It can be also used on any child that is too young to sit at a normal adult type fundus camera and as such is essential for any child's eye health.
Unfortunately due to budget restrictions, the Hull & East Yorkshire Eye hospital do not have the funds to support this purchase, even though it is something they desperately want and have been trying to purchase for many years.
Senior managers, Ophthalmologists at the eye hospital and the WISHH charity have given full support to this project.
The gift of sight is a precious thing and anything that helps clinicians maintain that, especially in children who have a lifetime in front of them, must be vigorously fought for.
The target of £95,000 is an enormous amount. Anything raised will help the Trust, and with various initiatives and the generous help of the community, parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles, brothers and sisters, we are confident we can achieve this!
Any one who knows and loves a child must surely appreciate how important this fundraising venture is. We urge you to please consider donating as much as you can. Anything will help to go towards this important piece of medical equipment.
Please have a look at our webpage: www.heyhullretcam.com
for more information and upcoming events you may like to join us in.
Thank you for visiting and hopefully donating.
We have a personal interest in this project as our 4 year old family member has a very rare eye disease which has left her blind in one eye and with reduced vision in the other. Throughout her treatment she needed regular check ups with a Retcam on her remaining eye to make sure the disease had not returned. The equipment needed to do this was not available in Hull and this meant taking her on regular trips to Birmingham and Leeds. She is now old enough to sit at an adult type camera, so a Retcam in Hull would not benefit her. Through our experience though, we know how absolutely critical a RetCam has been in her care plan. We now want other children in our area that may be in the unfortunate position of having eye problems to benefit from that experience by having local access to a Retcam camera.