Sherwood Forest Hospitals Trust donates thousands of crutches and zimmer frames to patients in Syria and Zambia

Sherwood Forest Hospitals Trust has sent more than 1,000 items including crutches, zimmer frames and chairs have been sent to Syria and Zambia to help those in need.
Kings Mill HospitalKings Mill Hospital
Kings Mill Hospital

The items, although in good condition, would otherwise have been thrown away.

Sherwood Forest Hospitals Turst is working with Community Help Africa and Hand in Hand for Syria as part of a commitment to being more sustainable, and the Trust's waste management team has come up with an innovative way to reuse hospital item - by sending them to hospitals, orphanages and schools.More than 820 pairs of crutches, 80 Zimmer-style walking frames and 70 chairs have been sent to Syria, with around 2,200 hand towel dispensers and 900 toilet roll dispensers being donated to Zambia.

The fourth load of hospital items has been shipped to Syria this month, meaning a grand total of40 tonnes of items have been reused.

The Trust, works with waste management subcontractor, Skanska to manage waste across all three of the Trust’s hospital sites – King’s Mill Hospital, Newark Hospital and Mansfield Community Hospital.

Skanska Waste Contract Manager Samantha Stanhope said: “After the Trust replaced all hand towel and toilet roll dispensers, we were left with a large number that could be reused somewhere. I thought it would be ideal to work with charities to see if they could benefit from equipment that the Trust no longer needed, so I contacted them and asked how we could work together. We now work with them to send things on a regular basis, which is brilliant. “This is just the start of a bigger commitment to re-using material. A lot of what comes through as waste can be reused, first and foremost within the Trust.”

Facilities Management Services Manager for the Trust, Liz Nicholas added: “We are thrilled that others are able to benefit from the use of equipment that would have otherwise been disposed of. We are very keen to spread the message across our Trust to encourage colleagues to re-use or recycle wherever possible.”

To find out more about the charities that SFH Trust have been involved with, visitwww.communityhelpafrica.btck.co.uk or www.handinhandforsyria.org.uk