GIVE A GIFT APPEAL: '˜If you haven't yet donated, please do'

The Gazette’s Give a Gift appeal is entering it’s third week and today, staff from the hospital and Blue Skies, the hospital’s charity fund, will start wrapping the couple of hundred presents that have already been donated.

Jo Gunn, who works in A&E at Blackpool Victoria Hospital, said: “I want to say a huge thank you, people may only have spent a few pounds but those few pounds could make a huge change to somebody’s Christmas.

“If you haven’t yet donated, please do.

“You don’t have to spend a fortune, just £3 or £4.

“Even if it’s just a bit of talc or a bar of soap, toiletries, things that they can actually use while they’re in hospital, an older person would really appreciate that kind of thing,”

Jo spoke further about the importance a present could have to somebody in hospital.

She added: “It would give them an absolutely incredible boost.

“I imagine we may have people in here who, through one reason or another, aren’t with their family on Christmas Day or they’re away from home, even local residents who don’t have any family and it might be the only Christmas present they get.

“Old people are quite often forgotten and I know Christmas is for children but especially if you’ve got a grandma/grandad who might not get to see their family and stuff because they live away, it’s incredible.”