Breathe Easy Isle of Wight held a very successful ‘Take Steps’ Day earlier this month as part of Breathe Easy Week and raised £250 for the British Lung Foundation after walking the equivalent of 68 miles.
As part of their special day the Breathe Easy Group also presented cheques to the Respiratory Department at St Mary’s Hospital.
Breathe Easy is the support network for the British Lung Foundation providing help and support to anyone living with a Chronic Lung Condition. They provide specialist respiratory exercise classes on a weekly basis and monthly support meetings plus outings and fundraising events to raise awareness of Respiratory Conditions. Their fundraising helps towards purchasing respiratory equipment for St Mary’s Hospital and for the British Lung Foundation to enable them to provide ongoing research into the treatment of lung conditions.
‘Take Steps’ is a sponsored charity walk and participants of the event were encouraged to record their steps by walking on treadmills, along measured routes within the Respiratory Department and grounds of St Mary’s Hospital. Across the 8 hour day all steps walked were recorded every hour. Staff in the Respiratory Department also took part by wearing pedometers for the day to see how many steps they walked.
Sarah Kearney, Lead Respiratory Nurse said:
“We had a fantastic day and this was an incredible achievement from everyone that took part. The Respiratory Department are so grateful to the Breathe Easy group; the fundraising they do has meant that we are able to purchase a new ultra sound scanner, more nebulizers and a high flow Oxygen machine. We couldn’t have achieved this without them, thank you to everyone involved.”
The Take Steps Day saw an impressive total of 153,500 steps walked which is the equivalent of 69.77 miles. The Isle of Wight has 68 miles of coastline so they walked just over the equivalent of a complete circuit of the Isle of Wight Coastal path.
Their huge efforts raised £250 for the British Lung Foundation and during the event Breathe Easy presented the following cheques to the Respiratory Department:
• £21,000 to Dr Andrew Woolley – Senior Respiratory Consultant to enable the purchase of an Ultra Sound Scanner. The Scanner Appeal project has raised a grand total of £26,000 over the last five years and the scanner can now be purchased.
• £1,200 to Sarah Kearney – Senior Respiratory / BLF Nurse to purchase 10 Nebulisers, 2 Travel Nebulisers and 3 Dyson Air Fans for the Respiratory Department.
• £6,000 to Jo Payne – Appley Ward Sister – to purchase a Humidified Oxygen Machine and Dyson Air Fans for use on Appley Ward.
