Cricketers leave mums and babies charity bowled over!
A trio of cricket teams made up of clinical and administrative staff based primarily at the Royal Preston Hospital raised £1,650 for mums and babies charity Baby Beat when they batted it out in a one day tournament played at Guys Thatched Hamlet, Bilsborrow.
The teams, all drawn from NHS Lancashire Teaching Hospitals Cricket Club, were captained by stroke consultant Dr Hari Bhaskar Kemparaju, who is also the club’s chairman, neurosurgeon Mr Kaushik Ghosh, who is treasurer, and its secretary, GP Dr Praful Reddy, who works at Ashton’s Briarwood Medical Centre. Mr Ghosh’s team was victorious.
Tournament organising committee member and radiology rota and leave co-ordinator Prince Davis said: “We are very grateful to all of the players and supporters. We’re also grateful to Sean Wilkinson, of the Wilkinson family, who own Guys Thatched Hamlet, and its manager Anne Musella for making the event possible by again providing facilities and lunch for the players.
“We had been due to play the weekend before with four teams but rain forced us to cancel so everyone had to put in extra effort to ensure the tournament went ahead. It was our fourth annual charity cricket event. Our previous charity events have supported BK’s Heroes, which fundraises for research into brain cancer and kidney disease, the Stroke Association and in 2021, our first event raised money for Covid initiatives in India through the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin.”
Joanna Allitt, fundraising manager for Baby Beat, said: “Everyone involved in the cricket event went to extraordinary lengths to make it possible after it was initially rained off. We are very grateful to them all for this fantastic donation that will go to projects benefitting some of the hospital’s very youngest patients and their families.”
Members of the NHS Lancashire Teaching Hospitals Cricket Club are also celebrating winning the Preston area Boddingtons Village Cricket League title this season.
Baby Beat is part of the Lancashire Teaching Hospitals Charity family. It funds specialist equipment, patient services and comforts, clinical care, local research, additional training and staff welfare projects so that the maternity and gynaecology teams can offer the best possible outcomes for babies and mums in the Central Lancashire and Chorley area.
With Baby Beat’s support, NICU continues to provide exceptional care for premature and sick babies and their families from across Lancashire and South Cumbria. For further information on Baby Beat’s work and how to support, visit www.babybeat.org.uk