Widow's gift hastens hospital scanner

The Observer told last December how the League of Friends of Bexhill Hospital was being invited to provide a 750,000 ultra-sound scanner for the hospital's outpatients' department.

At the time, the league was already committed to spending 1.175m on extending and modernising the Irvine Unit. The meeting approved a spending list topping 16,000 for other projects and asked for a member of the radiography department staff to come to its February meeting to explain more about the need for the ultra-sound scanner.

Almost immediately, Mrs Swonnell contacted retiring league secretary Nick Bennett to offer 20,000 towards the machine.

At its February meeting, a grateful league general committee was able to approve the purchase of the scanner with Mrs Swonnell's help.

Last Friday, Mrs Swonnell, her brother, and Mr Bennett were at the out-patients' department for a hand-over ceremony.

There, East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust radiography manager Lorraine Lee and radiographer Liz Newton showed her over other equipment given by the league before ultra-scan therapy manager Claire Simmonds explained the benefits the new scanner.

The equipment comes with four probes for taking scans of different parts of the body.

The new ultra-sound machine replaces one that had become obsolete and unreliable. But latest technological developments mean that it offers a more sophisticated range of facilities.

"Also, in terms of imaging it is far superior.to the machine it replaces. The technology is developing so rapidly. It is doing things we never thought possible five or 10 years ago," said Claire Simmonds.

Thanking Mrs Swonnell on behalf of staff for supporting the League of Friends, she said: "I am sure the people of Bexhill will benefit from it."

Patients were more than happy to know that not only was a once-threatened service now continuing but had been significantly improved. Many larger hospitals in other towns did not have equipment as sophisticated.

Mrs Swonnell, whose husband Peter died last year, told the Observer: "I think if we'd had a quick opportunity to get him a scan he might have been here now...

"Before he died he said 'You will leave the hospital something in your will, won't you?'

"Then I thought, 'It seems a pity to wait until I die when I could be helping someone now.'"

League president John Dowling told Mrs Swonnell: "I am sure that, thanks to the good work done in this outpatient department, the scanner you have helped to purchase will be put to excellent use for the benefit of the community.

"I hope that you find comfort in your loss in knowing that this remarkable example of modern technology will be of service to others."