Ashgate hospice are urgently needing to purchase 10 new syringe drivers, and we’re asking if your business, like ours, can help.
Vital to their care, a syringe driver is a small battery powered pump that delivers a steady stream of medication which helps to manage a patient’s symptoms in a comfortable way.
Syringe drivers are often used in the last few days or weeks of life, but they are not only useful at this stage. A syringe driver can also be used to manage someone’s symptoms at any stage of their illness; and enable patients to return home from our Inpatient Unit to be supported by our community teams.
At the very heart of Ashgate Hospice is the belief that every person matters and that they matter until the end of their life. Their aim is to not only help people to die peacefully, but also to live until they die; adding quality to their lives when every single day is so important.
Every patient is an individual with their own unique needs, preferences and wishes and they strive to care for them as a whole person with the upmost respect and understanding. They do this by providing access to facilities which offer support services that maintain and improve the practical, physical, and mental health of people living
Dr Sarah Parnacott, Ashgate Hospice Palliative Care Consultant spoke about the importance of syringe drivers. “Having ready access to the syringe drivers can make an immediate difference to the symptom management or end of life care to our patients. It enables continuous administration of medication obviating the need for repeated injections for patients who are unable to take medication orally due to nausea, vomiting, dysphagia, or those who are moving towards unconsciousness.
This improves the patient’s quality of life and improve symptom management at the end of life. This in turn is critical for relatives, so that they are not attributing the last injection to the cause of their relative’s death. Therefore, helping them in their bereavement.
Finally, a syringe driver frees up time for our nurses to spend time that would otherwise been spent drawing up medication enabling them to provide additional emotional and physical support to our patients and their relatives.”
We’re extremely grateful that we’re in a position to help in this way, and we hope that other business’s can help Ashgate achieve their goal, as finding the funds is an enormous challenge for them at this time of financial uncertainty.
Please contact Charlotte Gratton, Ashgate Hospice Partnerships Manager on charlotte.gratton@ashgatehospice.org.uk if you can help in any way.
