THE grateful family and friends have donated £18,000 to in thanks for the care shown to friend and relative Vicky Woollard.

Vicky, who was 45, was cared for in Colchester General Hospital’s critical care unit before she died in June last year.

Her boyfriend Mark Adams and six of their friends – known as Team VDubs – raised the cash for the unit.

More than £14,000 of the total has paid for a new transport ventilator, which the charitable team presented to the unit yesterday.

It is the unit’s second transport ventilator and will be used by patients when they go off the unit for diagnostic tests or when they are transferred to another hospital.

Account manager Vicky was living with her mother in Clacton when she was admitted to the hospital.

She was on a ward for a day and then spent the last week of her life on the critical care unit.

Mark said: “Vicky’s mother, brother, aunt and uncle and all her friends were pleased with the care she received in critical care.

“She was looked after with love, empathy and total professionalism and we were all kept well-informed, including when there were change-overs in shift.

“Afterwards, I wanted to do something for the unit and learned it was keen to buy a transport ventilator so that was what we set our sights on.”Clacton and Frinton Gazette:

Larger-than-life - Vicky Woollard

Vicky worked as an account manager for an Ipswich energy company.

Most of the cash was raised when Mark, 56, and four friends took part in and completed the 100km London 2 Brighton Challenge walk in May.

Mark raised £10,400, while his neighbour Steve Wood, headteacher of Clifford Road Primary School, Ipswich, and Steve’s sister, Jo, raised £1,542 and £500 respectively.

Mark’s god-daughter Jessica Rawson, 18, raised £1,604 after persuading fellow students at Framlingham College to adopt the unit as its fundraising cause for a term.

Friends Heather Bush and Carl Clark took part in the Brighton Marathon and 25-mile Orwell Run respectively, raising £175 and £300 and a VW fun day cricket match was held at Nacton Cricket Club, raising £865.

Jane Murphy, matron for critical care, said she believed the £18,000 was the biggest single donation the unit had received during the five years she had worked there.

“We’re enormously grateful Mr Adams, along with his friends and god-daughter, has raised this phenomenal sum of money for our unit,” she said.

“This ventilator will improve patient safety greatly when transferring patients around the hospital for scans, or to another hospital entirely.

"It is through generosity such as this that we are able to buy such advanced equipment.”

Staff on the unit will considering how they can spend the remaining £4,000 to benefit patients the most.