Miss World Fiji 2014 manager, Lara Chung, saw the need first hand for a ventilator for babies at the Suva Colonial War Memorial Hospital when her daughter was admitted there. She rallied the beauty pageant group to meet the need.

“My daughter was my inspiration to donate the ventilator,” says Ms Chung.

As a result of the effort, a $60,000 ventilator was yesterday donated to the CWMH’s Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) to help with the treatment of babies.

CWMH Medical Superintendent, Dr Jemesa Tudravu said: “This was what we were lacking for our children and the children along with their parents are much happy to find their children with specialist equipment for their treatment.”

Mr Tudravu stated out of the 3000 children admitted anually at the CWM Hospital, around 800 children are admitted in the PICU unit.

Ms Chung said her inspiration was her daughter, now two-year-old Cocolani Bradle who was in need of the ventilator while she was admitted in the unit at CWM Hospital.

“My daughter was admitted for a month when she was six months old and I had seen some nurses were manually bagging air into the lungs of the babies,” Ms Chung said.

“At that time, I was managing Miss World Fiji 2014 and that’s where I got my inspiration to get together with my management team and help these children.

Fiji Airways and Fiji Link executive general manager for corporate affairs, Shaenaz Voss said: “Fiji Airways was glad to be a part of this programme to provide assistance to the children in need.”

Edited by Rusiate Mataika