Last week we tied up some significant loose ends left over from our previous shipments. Bowen Hospital have changed out their beds and 18 of them came into our extremely welcoming hands. Our interface there has been with Hospital Engineer, Kevin Maude. Kevin could not have been more helpful. He had the beds parked under the hospital until we could load them into the container left for us, in the hospital grounds, by our friends from Volvo.
This was a shorter trip than the Volvo saga. Our mileage read a mere 3,121 km`s. From Brisbane we occupied a 10 ton truck from Europcar. The driving was the exclusive realm of Kiwi. From Hay Point to Townsville return we enjoyed the use of Millsie`s dual cab.
Since our last visit Stan Neal of Ruswin Locksmiths has taken a strong hand across our various Townsville initiatives. His local knowledge has been invaluable. We now possess there, a significant network, many from the old Bougie network but not always. Stan`s background is dominated by the South Pacific Brewery.
From my fall and otherwise I was of little use in the lifting department. We also missed the Kilo`s and the savvy not available, this time via Rogalski and Wilkins. However once again the mighty midgets, Millsie and Kiwi (our skipper), stepped in to fill the breach. We were also delighted to break in a new member of our team, Ray Stiles, thus maintaining our high level of technical skills and, with this our drive to adhere to the highest level of safe working practices. We cannot fail to mention the efforts of Dave Boneham, Lindsay Fraser Byass and the staff of Fastair, in Brendale. They helped us with our initial uplift.
This whole project was going nowhere until we defined a plan to tie down the Bowen load of beds. We were almost resigned to us using our Brisbane teams when Ian Smith mentioned to me that former BCL Dispatch Dept stalwart, Eddie Robertson was with Ergon, in Bowen. I phoned Eddie and without hesitation he “came on board”, as did his wife, Cathy and son, Ben. They brought with them, Peter Short, Kirtis Thatcher, Damian Penisi and Ross Galstfan. We arrived on the Tuesday afternoon. The pack out of the beds was completed on the Saturday, prior. A huge thank you goes to the Robertsons and their wantoks.
As with Eddie a spontaneous response came from ex-BCL folk based in Townsville. Some of them came down to the warehouse to assist with the final unloading. Thank you to Ron Whalan and Fonso Martens. Also open to joining with us in these works are Ian Smith, John Feltham and John Gretton. We have not yet connected with Maurie Dyne. After many years in Ravenswood, We believe that Maurie and Bev are also resident in Townsville.
When placed next to the container, we realised that the volume of equipment gathered from Woodford Hospital and from Anam Cara was much greater than we expected. Fortunately the initiative to source temporary storage, commenced by Stan, was ready for our usage. The excess material will now wait until the need (and shipment funding) is communicated to us by one of the PNG based Rotary Clubs or Rotary Community Corps. We would like to send the education books from New Zealand to the ports of Kieta or Buka as soon as possible. Please advise if you are aware of any organization that is shipping materials to Bougainville via Townsville.
The local crew gathered to handle Anam Cara and Woodford included Lindsay Fraser Byass, Peter Macaron and David Boneham.
Below is an approximate list of materials stored in our Townsville warehouse;
20 x Electric Beds
8 x Hospital Ward Trolleys (for Endscopy Dept)
1 x Regency Care Vinyl-covered Hospital Chair
19 x Wheeled Walkers
2 x Wheel Chairs
3 x Pallets of Education Books
Regards
Davo
0418 784 186
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