Hospital Nurses to Reach Dizzying Heights at 240ft Charity Abseil

Thirteen nurses from Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, including the hospital’s Lead Nurse, Walter Tann, will be facing their fears in May when they take on a 240ft abseil in Manchester City Centre.

The charity abseil is taking place on Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th May and will see approx. 150 participants abseiling down Liberty Living owned Liberty Heights in Manchester City Centre to help raise funds to support the Children’s Hospital.

The group of nurses all work on Ward 85, the cystic fibrosis, respiratory and cardiac ward at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital and will be raising money for their ward, to help provide added extras of comfort for the poorly children treated there, to make a difficult time a little bit easier for patients and their families.

Laura Eyre, Staff Nurse on Ward 85 comments: “I did a sponsored skydive last year which first gave me the fundraising bug, and since then I’ve been thinking what my next challenge could be. As soon as I heard about the abseil I thought it was the perfect way to raise money for my ward. I started asking some of the other nurses I worked with to take part as well but I never anticipated that so many of them would get involved!

“All of the money we raise will go towards transforming the teenage room on our ward into a more welcoming area for our older patients. We have a lot of long-term patients on the ward who can be in hospital for weeks or months at any given time, so we want to create a chill-out room where they can escape the ward environment, almost like a home from home. The more money we raise the better so as nervous as I may be on the day, I’ll know all our efforts are completely worthwhile!”

The ‘Humphrey’s Heroes’ abseil asks participants to be a superhero for the patients at the hospital and the Charity is encouraging participants to don their capes dressed as their favourite superhero as they descend the 240ft building at Manchester’s tallest abseil.

Staff Nurse Louise Managh is already planning superhero outfits for her fellow nurses. Louise comments: “We see this as our turn to be superheroes for the incredibly brave patients we treat at the hospital, so are becoming Ward 85 Superheroes! I’ll be making t-shirts with a Ward 85 logo and we’ll even be wearing superhero eye masks! There is a mix of emotions from the girls ranging from excitement to fear but we can’t wait to get fully behind the event.”

Lucy Naylor, Events Manager at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital Charity said: “This is our second charity abseil and is once again proving to be one of our most popular fundraising events. We find that our supporters like to set themselves a real challenge and - of course - love the excuse to dress up as their favourite superhero! We’re delighted to have so many nurses from the hospital joining us for the abseil; it’s lovely that they want to give back to their ward to help make the environment more inviting and comfortable for their patients. We still have places left for the Sunday abseil and encourage people to sign up to fundraise for a fantastic cause!”

Sponsor the nurses by visiting their Justgiving page here: www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Ward85Abseil

There are a limited number of places left for the Sunday Abseil. For more information and to register please CLICK HERE