Readers beat Starship target by extra $84,000

Starship Children's Hospital in Auckland. Photo / Natalie Slade

Thanks to the generosity of Herald readers, the Help Our Kids campaign for the Starship has ended on a high note, bringing in over $80,000 more than planned.

The Herald and the Starship Foundation set out with the aim of raising at least $150,000, but by last night, the official end of the campaign, $234,683 had been raised for high-tech equipment in the expansion and upgrading of the operating theatres suite at the 23-year-old national children's hospital in Auckland.

While the majority of donations came from all over NZ, we also had donations to the Help Our Kids campaign from around the world, including: France, Australia, Malaysia, Tonga, USA, Japan, Niue, Singapore, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, UK, United Arab Emirates and Thailand.

"Heartfelt thanks to all the generous people across New Zealand and even abroad who supported the Help Our Kids campaign to raise funds for Starship's new operating theatres and equipment," said foundation chief executive Brad Clark.

"The funds raised will make an enormous difference to the staff at Starship and to the 9000 patients and their families each year who use the operating theatres."

"Whether you were a kind donor contributing to the campaign, a past or present patient sharing your personal account of Starship, a staff member working on the frontline or behind the scenes at Starship or a member of the ... Herald team who partnered with us on the Help Our Kids campaign - thank you to you all. You are all stars for Starship!"

Editor Shayne Currie said the Herald was delighted with the support for the campaign which generated donations from nearly 2000 readers. "The Herald had no hesitation in getting behind Starship and raising money for such an important redevelopment project. The money raised will benefit thousands of children for many years to come - and that's something for all of our readers to be proud of. We are ever so grateful to all of our generous readers - and to the families who allowed us to share their stories."

The money raised has been used for surgical lighting sets, some with cameras; video screens; and a computer processing system to capture and view images of operations and to display x-rays and other scans on the surgeon's video screen.

The wider project involves building a seventh operating theatre, re-furbishing four of the existing six and improving the pre- and post-operative areas at a total cost of around $9 million.

The foundation has pledged to contribute $3.1 million to the Auckland District Health Board scheme.

It is expected to reduce surgeon fatigue, increase efficiency and help to reduce waiting lists.

Operating room number one, the first to be refurbished, went back into use three weeks ago.

The new theatre, OR 7, is scheduled to open for business on December 10.

The other theatre do-ups will be carried out sequentially after that, with the last of them due to open in mid-April. The project is expected to be completed by July.