By Katie Lawson | Head of Fundraising & Comms
We’re delighted to announce that we have now placed 86 Pulse Oximetry machines and raised over £90,000 towards our project to place life-saving machines in every maternity unit across the UK. Our aim is to ensure that every hospital has access to at least one of these potentially life-saving machines.
86 machines will allow over 120,000 babies annually to receive the test that could save their life. With 1 in every 125 babies having a serious heart condition, 1025 of these may have CHD. As the national average antenatal detection rate sits around 50%, this means that over 500 babies may remain undetected at birth and thus have a better chance of their heart defect being detected thanks to a pulse oximetry test at birth. Our aim is to place 330 machines by 2021 so we still have a way to go, but thank you for supporting us so far. We couldn't do it without you.
Every year 1000 babies leave hospital with their heart defect undetected, potentially putting their lives in danger. We are helping change this statistic.
Pulse Oximetry testing helps to detect heart defects in newborns by measuring oxygen levels (oxygen saturation) in the blood. Not every baby will be born displaying signs and symptoms of Congenital Heart Disease (CHD) and without this machine serious defects could go undetected.
Our CEO Jon Arnold said: “We are so proud of what we have achieved but there is so much more still to do. From a brand new project, we have gone on to place 86 machines in next to no time. Machines like this will potentially save the lives of babies with CHD and we are incredibly grateful to all of our supporters who have helped make this happen.”
Thank you for all your support of our life-saving project. We have also been incredibly fortunate to receive recent funding from the Edith Florence Spencer Memorial Trust, who aim to improve the lives of others suffering from medical conditions including heart defects and heart disease. The Trust has donated an incredibly generous £7500 towards placing machines nationally. And the Toyota TMUK Charitable Trust has funded £2900 to place pulse oximetry machines in hospitals in North Wales. We are incredibly grateful for their support.
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