When Xavier Zammit was diagnosed with a dangerous blood infection, the Paediatrics Intensive Care (PIC) unit team at Westmead Children’s Hospital nursed him back to health. Xavier was released after 3 weeks of intensive care and shortly afterwards the Zammit family made a donation to the hospital.
Nichole Zammit takes up the story from there.
“As a family, we were obviously delighted and relieved to have our son back, fit and well and we couldn’t thank the staff at Westmead Children’s hospital enough. At the time, we made a donation to the hospital and decided the business, and our teams that work with us, could help the hospital on an ongoing basis.
“We introduced a programme to encourage the teams to operate the cranes and equipment with more care and consideration and the money we saved on not having to fix and repair the fleet would be donated to the hospital. After the first year of the programme, we were able to donate $10,000 and we took two of the crew members to present the cheque. This year we took Xavier, which was special,” she said.
Nichole explains how the initiative has positively impacted on the attitude of the crews towards the cranes and equipment.
“The teams are aware of the initiative and mostly they work hard on preventing damage happening to the cranes. Whether it’s due to carelessness or circumstances, we understand incidents will happen and we accept this, but the crews are aware of the contribution they make and when they learn about the donations and see the photos, they realise they are making a valued contribution to the treatment of sick kids,” she said.
This was the first time Xavier had been involved in a cheque presentation since being released from hospital explains Nichole.
“The staff were amazing during Xavier’s care, and they have been when we’ve made the donations. Last year when we presented the donation, the hospital’s public relations team asked a member from the PIC unit team to be present and 10 were there and one of the head doctors has been present every time,” she said.
“This was the first time Xavier had been involved in a presentation and he was excited to there. He remembers bits and pieces from his stay in hospital but as a Mum, it was amazing for me to see him there fit and well. For as long as we can make contributions to the hospital we will. You cannot put a price on what they did for our family, and it is good to be able to say thank you in a small way,” Nichole said.