Trust fund may back woman’s heart appeal

Press, 13 May 1987, Page 9

Trust fund may back woman’s heart appeal

An appeal to send a Diamond Harbour woman to Australia for a heart transplant may receive support from the Belinda Trainor Trust Fund. The fund’s trustees have asked for more information about Mrs Adrienne Mackwell, aged 50, who hopes to leave New Zealand on June 2 for St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney.

Mr Graham McDermid, a trustee, said yesterday that the trust would help the appeal as much as it could.

“We are assessing how much we have in the way of funds to dispense — the bulk of bur funds have been depleted with donations to other transplant

patients,” he said. Mr Lawson Little, the appeal’s publicity officer, said it was organised by the Christchurch West and Lyttelton Rotary clubs and had received a good response so far. “We are getting support from all sorts of quarters — people are running dances, having collections on pay day and Master Valet dry cleaners are

giving 25c for each item dry-cleaned between now and June 2. “I was given $llO today as I left a meeting, a

friend of • Mr Mackwell’s collected $3OO at a Druids Lodge meeting, and the New Zealand Post Diamond Harbour branch collected $ll5 in the first

hour it was open.” About $760 towards the $60,000 deposit for the heart transplant had been collected by Monday afternoon, he said. “We hope we will be on the way to $120,000 by the departure date on June 2. It’s a big figure but we are confident we are going to raise it before she goes. We will review it at that point and carry on the appeal for as long as needed to pay the bills.”

If the appeal raised more than $120,000 the excess would be used to help anyone else who needed monetary support for an operation, said Mr Little.