MORE than $11,000 has been donated to the Far North Queensland Hospital Foundation by North Queensland based construction company, BESIX Watpac.
BESIX Watpac donated the funds from the sale of replaced Cairns Hospital generators to the charity that supports the Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service.
Northern Area Manager Wade Cummins said the sale of the old hospital generators was a terrific way to support the community while delivering the successful High Voltage project for Cairns Hospital.
“We are proud of the role we play delivering new infrastructure in North and Far North Queensland, and in particular the strong community involvement this has cemented over many decades,” Mr Cummins said. “It was very satisfying to be able to work with our BEMS (Building, Engineering and Maintenance Services ) colleagues at Cairns Hospital to deliver such a great result for the Far North Queensland Hospital Foundation,” he said.
The donation came about through the replacement of two generators, which weighed six tonnes each and were more than 30 years old, being replaced with one eight-tonne 825KVA generator. The improved technology provides low voltage generation power across the hospital to ensure it can maintain essential power at all times.
Cairns Hospital Capital Infrastructure manager Jeremy Kingsford said that during renovation works of this nature, it is sometimes found that items removed as part of the upgrade project, may hold value when auctioned by the contractor.
“In this case the BESIX Watpac team decided to reinvest these proceeds and some of its own back into the community through the Hospital Foundation. We would like to thank the High Voltage team for the ongoing hard work being done to improve our facilities, for delivering not only this infrastructure project, but also for thinking ‘outside the box’ to support our Cairns community,” Mr Kingsford said.
Foundation CEO Gina Hogan was thrilled with the donation.
“This is a great example of the corporate community working with the health service and identifying an opportunity to contribute,” Mrs Hogan said.
“We’re all part of the community and there is nothing is more important than health and having access to quality healthcare close to home. We appreciate the generous donation from BESIX Watpac,” she said. “The great thing about the Hospital Foundation is that our commercial activities pay all our expenses which means every cent donated goes where it’s intended. Every cent of this donation from BESIX Watpac will go where it’s meant to and that’s the same for every donation we receive.
“We’re hoping to put these funds towards a cannulation procedure chair in Medical Imaging at Cairns Hospital,” she said.
Photo: BESIX Watpac Northern Area Manager Wade Cummins with Foundation CEO Gina Hogan.
