Sunday 1st September 2019

Forever Friends Appeal

‘We are the fundraising charity of the Royal United Hospitals (RUH) in Bath. We help pay for additional equipment and facilities, exciting initiatives, research and innovations, as well as the finishing touches and ‘extras’ that complement the existing high quality care provided by RUH staff. This includes fundraising for redevelopment projects to upgrade facilities, create space and allow our clinicians to adopt new ways of working.

One of our current campaigns is raising funds for a new Cancer Centre; set to revolutionise care and the patient journey for patients living in Bath and the surrounding towns and villages in North East Somerset and Western Wiltshire. For more information about the Cancer Care Campaign, please visit www.foreverfriendsappeal.co.uk/ruhcancercentre or call us on 01225 825691’ 

Neverest Orthopaedics 

Neverest Orthopaedics founder, Rohan Rajan, is a professor of orthopaedics, biomechanics and gait at the University of Derby. Rohan’s intention is to use his wealth of experience in order to train junior surgeons to become better than himself. Furthermore, his charitable efforts aim to increase the teaching of orthopaedics, particularly spinal injuries, in one of the world’s poorest countries, Nepal.

Currently, the mortality rate from spinal cord injury in Nepal is high. These mostly occur from road and fruit picking accidents and tend to come from the most marginalised bracket of society. There is no government funding for rehabilitation and as you can imagine life in a wheelchair in one of the most mountainous countries in the world is not easy! The sad fact is that for most Nepalese who suffer a spinal cord injury their life is over. With high levels of poverty and almost all work being physically intensive a person who cannot work just becomes another mouth that can’t afford to be fed. This results in many people with debilitating injuries being left to fend for themselves on the streets.

There is hope however. With the help of charity and corporate funding a team of pioneering doctors and businessman established Nepals very first spinal unit just outside Kathmandu. An incredible endeavour that has proved overwhelmingly successful in giving patients and their families a second chance at life. There is however a limited amount of space which means only a small percentage of the people that require help are able to be catered for.

With this in mind the plan is to build a second spinal unit in Chitwan but without any support from the government for rehabilitation all of the money will have to be raised from outside support.

The opportunity to help in such a project is one that former professional rugby player, charity ambassador and spinal cord injury advocate Ed Jackson grabbed with both hands. After travelling to Nepal in October with the charity and seeing first hand how desperate the situation is and the difference that this unit could make, Ed is now more passionate than ever to do everything he can to help.

With this in mind, Ed; in conjunction with Restart Rugby has put together a group of recently retired rugby players to help raise the £250,000 necessary to build the new spinal unit in Chitwan. This will be done through a series of fundraising events over the next year culminating in an epic 18 day attempt to summit a 6500m Himalayan peak in November 2019.