7:00am Monday 22nd December 2008
By Amanda Williams
Carers believe the closure of a service at Churchill Hospital which loans medical equipment to people in Oxford will make life more difficult.
The Red Cross centre offers wheelchairs, crutches, bath seats and walking sticks, but has failed to find another home for itself after a 15-month search.
After Christmas, patients who need the service will have to travel to its headquarters in Abingdon, or into the city to the Shopmobility centre at the Westgate Shopping Centre car park.
Joanne Giles, from Rose Hill, Oxford, is a full-time carer for her 17-year-old daughter Hannah and believes the move would make things very difficult for her family.
She said: “It will be a nightmare trying to get into the city centre, or to Abingdon every time we need to borrow a wheelchair.
“I also do some volunteer work with disability groups and I know this will make things very awkward for them.
“It’s relatively easy to get to the Churchill. But going to Abingdon is going to take a huge chunk out of our day.”
The organisation had previously run a charity shop at the site, which it set up in the 1960s and had based at the hospital for nine years.
Vera Osborn-King, who has volunteered for the Red Cross since it opened at the hospital, said the venue had been ideal.
She added: “It has been very useful being at the hospital for all these years, but wherever we go we’ll still be doing the same job.”
Until a new venue is found, Mrs Osborn-King and her fellow volunteers will be based at the Shopmobility centre, where they have been allowed extra space by Oxford City Council to carry on the service.
The Red Cross provides the equipment when the other services cannot.
After the First World War, the charity found it had massive surpluses of equipment and began to lend it to people from their volunteers’ homes.
The medical loan service has since grown significantly. Now if a person is given a pair of crutches when leaving hospital, but would prefer a wheelchair or a walking frame, the Red Cross can provide a short-term loan.
The Churchill Hospital, which has been undergoing a multi-million-pound redevelopment, said it had not yet decided what it would do with the space formerly used by the charity. A spokesman said: “It could be refurbished, revamped, or even demolished. Nothing is definite yet.”
Chris Beck, British Red Cross operations director for Thames Valley, said: “We would like to take this opportunity to thank staff at the Churchill Hospital for their hospitality over the years and look forward to announcing the opening of a new venue in the near future.”
For more information on the availability of mobility services in Oxford, call 0845 0547400.
The Red Cross centre at the Churchill will be closed from Wednesday. It will be open from January 5-9 for returns only.
awilliams@oxfordmail.co.uk
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