The Oxygen Therapy Centre will be able to help three times more clients in Jersey with a new facility in the Island. The charity has set its sights on a new centre which they would like to open in 2019, but they need assistance from local businesses and the philanthropic community to realise their plans.
The Oxygen Therapy Centre provides support and rehabilitation to people living with MS, Fibromyalgia, other neurological conditions, cancer and sports injuries to name a few. They assist a growing number of clients in the Island, aged from three weeks up to 93 years old, through their oxygen chamber and complimentary therapies.
They have secured new premises on Trinity Hill with complementary legal assistance from Bedell Cristin and have been fund raising for the new Oxygen Chamber thanks to donations from the Association of Jersey Charities and the CI Lottery Fund. However, they need to raise a further £200k to complete the refurbishment of the centre to ensure it is accessible for all who will benefit from it.
The new double oxygen chamber will allow the charity to treat 12 people at a time, significantly increasing their current capacity of four. The charity has seen demand for their services rise dramatically over the past few years as Oxygen Therapy becomes more widely understood and used in treatment, in particular for cancer patients. In 2016, the Oxygen Therapy Centre completed 365 sessions, in 2017 491 sessions, and they are already at 610 sessions for 2018 to date. The new chamber will be the only low-pressure oxygen chamber in the Channel Islands and a very positive addition to Jersey with only a handful available across the UK.
The charity currently helps to treat over 40 different conditions for 72 clients. However, statistics for the Island show that they could be assisting a lot more with 250 islanders living with MS, more than 4,000 with Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue and ME, and 900 with cancer. According to the States of Jersey Disability Strategy, there are almost 14,000 disabled islanders*, and a large number of them would be able to benefit from the Oxygen Therapy Centre.
Tori Ducker, Development and Operations Manager at the Oxygen Therapy Centre, says:
‘We are thrilled to announce plans for the new facility that will enable us to reach out and help so many more Islanders. We have seen such amazing results for our clients who suffer from a range of conditions from cancer to sports injuries and the demand for our services has almost doubled in the last two years. We know we have a lot of money to raise for the new facility and we would be so grateful if people would come forward to help us.’
To offer assistance to the Oxygen Therapy Centre please call Tori on (0)1534 737297 or email [email protected] or donate online www.oxygen.org.je