A follow-up with Sue & Donna from Lodge Real Estate with Mike & Adrian from Raglan Medical. We talk about Community, Services, and Big Dreams for Raglan.
Let’s start this article with a massive THANK YOU to Sue and Donna from Lodge Real Estate for the two new defibrillators they invested into our Raglan Community last year.
The two defibrillators were provided as a gift to the community initiated through their friendship with Chris and Shannon, following the passing of their son, and their colleague in real estate Kyle Leuthart.
We featured the defibrillator located at the Raglan Rest Home and Hospital in a previous article, and wanted to follow up with the journey of the second defibrillator in this article.
The second defibrillator was located in the PRIME response car, so we headed down to Raglan Medical to check in with Dr’s Mike Loten and Adrian Wilson. PRIME (primary response in a medical emergency) is currently managed through West Coast Health Charitable Trust. The service is activated when someone calls 111 and St John staff feel the situation is life threatening and needs an immediate response. Raglan Medical manages these calls during normal working hours and a team of specially trained clinicians go on call to respond outside of normal hours.
Those of us in the community unfamiliar with PRIME funding (myself included!) would likely be shocked to hear that defibrillators are not a standard part of a PRIME car service. In fact, there are many features that could be added to the current Raglan PRIME service that would require special financial resourcing.
There have been numerous cardiac arrests since Sue and Donna gifted these defibrillators to Raglan Medical, specifically associated with the response of this PRIME call-out vehicle. It strengthens their resolve to know that this donation is being used to save lives and is part of a wider drive to improve the systems, processes, and services of our small coastal community. Sue and Donna have lived between Raglan and Hamilton for over twenty years and know too well the need for emergency care in both urban and rural environments.
I spoke with Dr Adrian about the gift of this device to the PRIME response car. He gave insight about the significant lack of funding to a service that most of us (including himself!) would have thought were standard provisions from top down governmental systems; they are not! “Local businesses sponsoring our services are invaluable,” he stated, “we expect this stuff to be top down, but that’s not the case.” Indeed, he promotes the sponsorship of crucial gear such as this PRIME defibrillator and was deeply grateful for Sue and Donna, “Doing this work using innovative and creative ways to support our community”.
In 2023 Sue and Donna were keen to not just provide the defibrillators, but to also offer training so that more of us know HOW to use them in an emergency. The fire station hosted almost 50 of us to do lunch-time training within an hour. Everyone that attended that free course is now one step closer to being confident to use a defibrillator in an emergency situation.
To maintain this traction, Sue and Donna are funding a subsequent training session that will be held at Raglan Medical one evening in early December. This training session will be posted here in The Chronicle when it is confirmed so watch this space!!
If you want to find out more about Raglan Medical and the PRIME response team or if you wish to sponsor the growth of this service: admin@raglanmedical.co.nz
If you want to learn more about Sue Hall and Donna Southwick check out their socials:
@suziehall or send them an email:
sueh@lodge.co.nz or donnas@lodge.co.nz
By Katie Lowes
