The Grand Brighton Half Marathon (Sunday 24 February) provided Holy Cross Hospital with its latest fundraising opportunity.
Three runners from Holy Cross Hospital proudly crossed the finishing line at the Brighton Half Marathon, between them achieving some very impressive times and even raising money for the hospital’s treehouse project. The project will see the creation of a wheelchair accessible platform among the trees in the hospital grounds, where patients can enjoy the pleasure of being high up among wildlife and in natural surroundings.
“I’m enormously grateful to John Cavanagh who was a colleague of one of our patients and who completed the 13.2 mile run in a very respectable 2 hours and 12 minutes,” says Dr Ross White, Chief Executive of Holy Cross.
“Our patients are highly dependent on specialist medical care so simple pleasures like being in the countryside, enjoying sunshine, birdsong or a gentle breeze are not straightforward things for us to provide. But thanks to the generosity of people like John, we intend to build a wheelchair accessible platform among the trees. We hope to reach our fundraising target over the next few months so if you’ve not donated online already please do consider us as a worthy local cause.”
Rosie Cramner and Manuela Maxwell - both from The Physiotherapy Centre which is based at Holy Cross Hospital - also ran at the half marathon. Manuela finished in the top 15% of runners with an excellent time of 1 hour 44 minutes and Rosie was among the top 40 (of 3,000) female runners at the event, completing it in just 1 hour 30 minutes. This is an amazing feat, particularly as this was Rosie’s first experience of a large-scale competitive race.
“Both Rosie and Manuela are specialist physiotherapists at the centre and, as you can tell, are excellent advocates for a healthy active lifestyle,” says Dr White. “Many of our outpatients are very active in sports. As both Rosie and Manuela are serious athletes themselves, they understand how important it is to help our patients keep injury free.”
Rosie and Manuela are among a team of seven specialist physiotherapists at The Physiotherapy Centre. Between them they offer a range of therapies such as hydrotherapy, acupuncture and orthopaedic rehabilitation. The centre offers group exercise classes based around physiotherapy and has a gym and hydro pool on site. Although part of Holy Cross Hospital, the centre is open to clients as outpatients, all of whom can take advantage of an initial assessment to see how the centre can help.
Supporters of Holy Cross’s treehouse project have already raised around £69,000 but more is still needed. More information is available on the fundraising section of the hospital’s website.
Caption: Athletes and physiotherapists Rosie Cramner and Manuela Maxwell.
