On Sunday, 26 August 2018 we celebrated the start of construction of the Women’s & Children’s Hospital Foundation Beach House in Encounter Lakes at Victor Harbor.

In collaboration with the Hospital, families, builders and the community, the Beach House will provide purpose-built holiday accommodation for the children from the Women’s and Children’s Hospital suffering with a life-limiting illness and their families to enjoy.

Once completed this home will have all the equipment and disability support tools and resources the families will need, as well as a whole system of provisions such as meals, access to local community and tourism activities and medical assistance. The Beach House is located close to the South District Coast Hospital should an emergency arise or medical support is needed.

The home itself will feature four bedrooms to allow for siblings and additional family members or carers, wheelchair and mobility aid access and provision of medical equipment so families do not need to travel with surplus supplies.

WCH Foundation CEO Jane Scotcher said the ceremony was an exciting opportunity to bring together the families behind the project, the community members who have donated to the project, the hospital and local communities.

 “The Beach House will provide the families of the Women’s and Children’s Hospital who have a child suffering a life-limiting illness with a place to get away from the hospital environment and relax.

We cannot change the journey for families but together we can make it easier and I thank everyone for their support so far.”

The turning of the sod also marks the launch of the community fundraising campaign for the project. With the generous support of our Build Partner, Bella Build & Design most of the construction has been covered with in-kind support from the building industry. We still have a target to reach to fund the remaining items needed for the house.

Donations are still needed towards purchasing items such as furniture, home décor, medical equipment, whitegoods, entertainment systems, for landscaping and so much more so that the Beach House will have everything a family staying could possibly need.

Construction and fit out of the Beach House is expected to take up to seven months to complete. We hope to welcome our first family in March 2019.

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For more information about the project, including stories from some of our families, head to the WCH Foundation Beach House Project page.

Team WCH Foundation is excited to announce our Ambassador for the 2018 City-Bay, Caelim Worthing, who is a long-term patient of the Women’s and Children’s Hospital and a very talented runner.

Caelim was born with a Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH), which is a malformation of the diaphragm that allows the abdominal organs to push into the chest cavity, hindering the proper formation on the lungs. CDH is life-threatening in infants and a major cause of death due to two complications: pulmonary hypoplasia (incomplete development of the lungs) and pulmonary hypertension (increased blood pressure within the arteries in the lungs) .

He spent the first two months of his little life in the Women’s and Children’s Hospital receiving treatment and enduring life-saving surgery when he was less than two days old. It was seven long weeks before mum, Kathy and dad Mark, were able to hold their beautiful baby boy for the first time, “He was taken directly to an incubator after he was born,” Kathy said.

Now a healthy 16-year-old, Caelim has grown up to be an avid runner, and can be regularly found at his local Park Run training for his next event. Because of this and of his own experience he was excited to join Team WCH Foundation as our 2018 Ambassador. “I appreciate the opportunity to do something for the Women’s and Children’s Hospital and to raise awareness of families who need their help”.

This year, funds raised by Team WCH Foundation will go towards SA’s first purpose-built respite accommodation. This special holiday house will be especially for, and available to, hospital families who are caring around the clock for children requiring significant care and support due to a long-term and/or life-limiting illness. And it will offer a welcoming, calm and peaceful environment far from the physical and emotional stresses of the hospital setting.

Caelim is just one of the many amazing people that have joined our team so far this year. If you too want to support your hospital in this year’s City-Bay then click here and join the WCH Foundation team. To help get you ready, Caelim has shared some of his top tips below on how to get race day ready!

Our Foundation has a long history of fundraising for and supporting the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, and the children, mums and families the hospital community cares for every day.

Wednesday, 20 June 2018 at 11.00am marked the exact time 140 years ago that the Foundation Stone was laid, marking the location where South Australia’s first Children’s Hospital would be built (the current site of the Women’s and Children’s Hospital).

Poor quality of life and premature death for destitute and poor children were two reasons for the establishment of the Adelaide Children’s Hospital in 1876. In the same year the newly formed Health Board began investigating the reasons for such a high number of sick children in the colony. The Board determined that a hospital for children was desperately needed, land was secured in North Adelaide and the Foundation stone was laid on 20 June 1878.

On 6 September 1876, a group of seven philanthropic ladies, all wives of prominent colonial pioneers (Mesdames Colton, Campbell, Fowler, Jeffries, Knight, Stuckey and Smedley), along with Mary Ashley (a representative of the Church of Christ) and Dr Allan Campbell from the Board of Health met to begin planning for the Adelaide Children’s Hospital.

Over the next two years this group of visionaries started a fundraising campaign within the community to raise the £2,500 needed to build the first hospital building, the Samuel Way Building, which was completed and opened with only 24 beds in 1879.

In 1989, the Adelaide Children’s Hospital and the Queen Victoria Hospital amalgamated to become the Women’s and Children’s Hospital and our foundation was again reborn to become known as we are today, the Women’s & Children’s Hospital Foundation.

Philanthropists and fundraisers from our community have worked together to raise funds in support of the hospital ever since, and through this partnership our Foundation has existed in one reiteration or another since two years prior to the laying of the Foundation Stone and continues to do so today.

Today, our two iconic and historical organisations continue to work together to support babies, children, mums and their families by providing access to the best possible healthcare at times when they need it the most.

Over the past 10 years’ alone our Foundation has raised more than $30 million dollars in support of your hospital and families in South Australia, the Northern Territory, Broken Hill and the Sunraysia Region in Victoria.

Our support extends to every corner of your hospital from providing leading edge technology and vital equipment to funding key research projects and family-centred support programs.

We are honoured to support the hospital community as they embark on the journey to build their new home and to providing outstanding care into the future.

Read more about the history of the Women’s and Children’s Hospital.

A detailed history of the hospital’s earlier years can also be found in:

1.       Margaret Barbelet’s book titled “The Adelaide Children’s Hospital 1876 – 1976.”

2.       Dr. Brian Fotheringham’s booked titled “A Continuing History of the Adelaide Children’s Hospital 1976 – 1989.”