Amongst the other fundraising of Royal Navy Lodge, our own charity steward, Nigel Mann has been assisting the Area 8 initiative to help fund the path lab within the new clinical trials unit at the QEQM hospital in Margate.
Each Lodge and Chapter in Thanet (Area 8 in the Province of East Kent) were asked to donate to this cause which was then enhanced by the Cornwallis East Kent freemasons charity and Masonic Charitable Foundation.
Coupled with some other local fundraising initiatives throughout the area, we were able to present a cheque to the East Kent Clinical Trials Unit at the QEQM for £22,000 which is sufficient to pay for the equipment required in a small Pathology Laboratory.
Nigel went to the presentation where he was met at the Hospital by Rupert Williamson – Fundraising Manager at East Kent Hospitals Charity who took us along to the New Clinical Trials Unit (St Peters Road entrance) where we were introduced to Jess Evans – Director of Research & Innovation at the Trust, who effectively heads up the new CTU and oversees the 20 or so staff employed within.
A Clinical Trials Unit is, as the name suggests, for trials. Drug companies (Glaxo Smithkline, Pfizer etc.) will offer trial medications (which have undergone many basic trials) to such a facility in return for detailed data as to how the new drug may have worked and how the patient has reacted. (It should be noted that only hospitals with a 24-hour A&E Department can accommodate a Clinical Trials Unit in case of a reaction to a medication.)
Representatives of various lodges were shown round by Jess and one of her staff and the facility consists of a four bed ward with dedicated Nurses Station, a generous consulting room, the staff / research room, and the new Path. Lab. The physical floor-space had come from a ward long since closed and most recently used to store the bins!
The ward is designed not to be a long stay ward, the notion is that patients requiring treatment are already in a ward elsewhere in the hospital and are bought to the CTU in the event that their conventional treatment is ineffective. Until the opening of this facility, patients would have had to travel to either Brighton, or London.
The Path. Lab. has three fridges. One at 4°, another at minus 20° and the third at minus 80°. There is also a “fume cupboard” which allows the researchers to work with blood, tissue, and other samples without fear of infection themselves. the donations also paid for a refrigerated centrifuge which allows the researchers to separate a sample based on density. Secure storage and an advanced air conditioning system designed to keep the ambient temperature at optimum, are also within.
Without an adjacent Pathology Lab, the samples would have to be sent off to other centres up and down the country with some going as far as Leeds. The ability to instantly see the effect a treatment is having on a patient allows the staff to be far more agile in varying the medication and the general care provided.
Because of the assistance and valuable information, the CTU will provide to the drug companies, it is expected that the CTU will be financially self-sufficient in a couple of years’ time (the drug companies making sufficient donations to the East Kent Hospitals Charity).
Jess provided us an example of this. A colorectal cancer patient at a similar facility where she had previously worked was not responding to conventional medication. The CTU were able to prescribe an experimental treatment from one of the drug companies and progress thus monitored by the Path. Lab. The total cost of this individual’s treatment was estimated at £6.5m and the cost was borne exclusively by the drug company. The patient has now been clear of cancer for nearly eight years.
The CTU at Margate will welcome its first patient in early August and it will be at that moment, that your charitable donations will start to save lives.
Jess and her staff thank you for your donations. Rupert at the East Kent Hospitals Charity thanks you for your donations. As a very proud Charity Steward of Royal Navy 429, I thank you for your donations. But the people who will thank you the most are the patients we will never see.
On their behalf…………………… Thank you