A WEST FIFE charity has donated two vein-finders for newborns in the maternity unit at Victoria hospital.

The Cookie Jar Foundation raised more than £4,000 with help from the Fife Housing Group through a car boot sale, their 'Great British Cookie Off' event, and a hike up Ben Nevis.

This funded one device, with the other being purchased thanks to individual donations made to the charity.

Interim inpatient clinical midwifery manager Pamela Higgins said: "We are extremely pleased and grateful for the donation of two vein-finders from the Cookie Jar foundation.

"We will utilise these primarily for PVC insertion in neonates within the intra partum floor and our postnatal ward for new-born babies requiring IV medication within their first hours of life.

"For any parent having your child unwell and requiring IV medication is extremely stressful. The vein-finders will assist staff in undertaking an extremely difficult skill and will make the process easier and more accurate.

"Aiding in administering IV medication as soon as possible, the vein-finders are a welcome addition to the equipment and processes we have in place to provide neonates the care they need whilst remaining with their parents throughout."

Set up in memory of Christopher 'Cookie' Coutts, who died in 2013 at just 19 after a two-year battle against Hodgkin's Lymphoma, one of the Foundation's main aims is to provide vein-finders for nearby hospitals.

The Aberdour family discovered the devices, which allow veins to be found easily by scanning, during a visit to Manchester's Christie Centre, after the former Inverkeithing High pupil struggled with stress and anxiety surrounding IV procedures.

Now, another set have been handed over to the hospital, which has benefitted from the Foundation in the past alongside Dunfermline's Queen Margaret Hospital and Edinburgh’s Western General and Sick Kids hospitals.

This was the first time they have given to the maternity unit, which had already been looking into placing the machines in two of their wards.

After being nominated as the Fife Housing Group's local charity of the year in 2019, the team had hoped to take part in a variety of fundraising activities, including a race night, but were stopped by pandemic restrictions.

For more information about their efforts, visit www.thecookiejarfoundation.co.uk or the Cookie Jar Foundation Facebook page.