$10,000 Raised For Waikato Hospital

Nearly 22 months ago Matthew Purchase was near death in Waikato Hospital's intensive care unit.

Doctors feared he would never walk or talk again.

Earlier today the 23-year-old completed a 500 metre sponsored walk near his family farm in Dorset, England.

He was absolutely exhausted at the end of it but thrilled to have raised $10,000, $5000 of which will be for Waikato Hospital's intensive care unit waiting room.

The achievement was "monumental", said his father Ian Purchase today.

In December 2007 Matthew was in New Zealand on an agricultural student exchange. He was out rabbit shooting on the Putaruru farm where he had been working when a bullet fired from a .22 rifle at point-blank range entered the back of his head, shattered his skull and destroyed most of the right side of his brain.

For weeks his parents Ian and Helen sat in the intensive care unit waiting room never once complaining at how inadequate it was for people like them under enormous stress and thousands of kilometres from home.

"When we arrived at the hospital, we were probably as stressed as we had ever been in our lives and worried sick over what was happening - the waiting room only made the problem worse," said Mr Purchase.

"There wasn't much room to sit down and to try to come to terms with what was happening without a complete stranger looking over our shoulders, which made it even more stressful .The room on the right, as you go in, was so dark and dingy that it was intimidating and only added to the gloom that we were feeling. People avoided it as though it was the black hole of Calcutta and it is wasted space! To get to the coffee making facilities we had to climb over people who obviously needed to be left alone to come to terms with their own problems without us tripping over them." Friends and relatives need to have some dignity in what for them is probably the worse crisis they will ever face in their lives, he said.

So when William Pike, the Auckland secondary school teacher who lost his right leg after he was caught in an eruption on Mt Ruapehu, said he wanted to have a fundraiser for the intensive care waiting room, the Purchases offered to help.

The Pike family had similar issues with the waiting room as they waited weeks for William to recover.

Details of the fundraiser at Waikato Hospital on Tuesday October 6 at 6pm is at http://www.waikatodhb.govt.nz/events/pageid/2145847066/Giving_something_back or to make a donation www.williampike.co.nz

"It really did take a monumental effort from him and he deserved every penny of his sponsorship money," said Mr Purchase.

"He was absolutely exhausted afterwards and slept for an hour and a half. He has raised far more than we ever envisaged and complete strangers have even stopped Helen in our local town and offered to sponsor Matthew after seeing him on BBC TV."

Half the money will go towards a trust fund set up by the clinical director of neurosurgery at Waikato Hospital, Dr Venkataraman Balakrishnan (Bala).

It was Bala who said to the Purchases nearly 22 months ago: "I can't give Matthew back to you 100 percent, but I can give Matthew back."

"We are very proud of his achievement and especially the way he is determined to keep on improving," said Mr Purchase.

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