MORE than £2,000 for a state-of-the-art chemotherapy pump was presented to a Plymouth charity for Derriford Hospital by Tavistock Rotary Club recently — and funds for another four are planned to be donated in the future.

Many residents of Tavistock owe their health and some lives to the haematology department of Derriford Hospital. The work of the staff of Birch, Bracken, Burrator and Brent wards has been supported for nearly 25 years by the Plymouth and District Leukaemia Fund (PDLF).

In that time the PDLF has raised more than £500,000 and has helped to establish six isolation rooms and a bone marrow processing laboratory at the hospital and has funded important research into leukaemia.

This year, the PDLF charity has teamed up with Tavistock Rotary Club, which has set the ambitious target of buying five state-of-the-art chemotherapy pumps for the hospital.

At a packed guest evening at the Bedford Hotel recently, the rotary club presented a cheque for the first of these pumps, costing in excess of £2,000, to PDLF.

Presenting the cheque to PDLF’s Professor Adrian Copplestone, Rotary president Catherine Bailey said: ‘It is vital that the dedicated staff helping the patients in the haematology department have access to the best equipment available and we are proud to be able to play our part in supporting them.’

Catherine paid particular thanks to Mark Mitchell from Smokey Joe’s in Tavistock for the sum of £650 contributed by the shop’s customers.

l Pictured below, left to right are Rotarian Graham Parker, Professor Adrian Copplestone of PDLF, Rotary club president Catherine Bailey and Rotarian Peter Baron (centre). Both Graham and Peter have benefited from treatment in the haematology department in recent years.

Picture by James Bird