Henry Bloom News
Henry Bloom Noble Healthcare Trust looks forward in 125th year Anniversary “Today the very broad role of the Trust involves funding the latest equipment for our Island’s doctors, providing education so we have better-trained professionals in the public and private sectors, funding research into the prevention and elimination of disease and promoting good health, such as supporting healthy eating initiatives in the Island’s schools.” “The Trust also supports improvements to the quality of care for patients convalescing at home and in hospital, with the funding of equipment and training, equipment to expand the opportunities available to sick and disabled people and support for the nursing and care of the sick, infirm and disabled in their own home.”
Henry Bloom Noble is famous throughout the Isle of Man, especially in Douglas, as a great benefactor whose generosity assisted to establish such landmarks as the Villa Marina, St Ninian’s Church, Noble’s Park, Ramsey Cottage Hospital and, of course, the original Noble’s Hospital. Today, his ambition of seeing positive developments for the Island, especially in healthcare, lives on through the Henry Bloom Noble Healthcare Trust, which is celebrating its 125th anniversary in 2013.
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he Trust began following the death of Henry Bloom Noble’s beloved wife Rebecca in 1888 and continued after his death 1903, becoming a statutory body with widened remit in 1909. Through more than a century of support to Noble’s Hospital and other health-related charities, the Trust has continued with the earlier aspirations of the original Trustees. This has only been possible thanks to the kind generosity of the people of the Isle of Man. To celebrate the 125th anniversary, the Trust has launched a new website, hosted events including a fundraising black tie Diamond Dinner and carried on with its work of supporting healthcare imporvements. Trust Chairman Larry Keenan said: “The original aim of the Trust was to improve the quality of healthcare in the Isle of Man and, 125 years on, that is still our purpose. Of course, much has changed in terms of what we support, and how we fund that support.”
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It is not simply a case of buying doctors new tools. The Trust recognises ‘healthcare’ is a broad term which encompasses people outside hospital settings, as well as inside, and is as much about preventing illness and helping people recover as it is treating illness. In its early years, much of the Trust’s focus was on investment in buildings, such as the gifting of a parcel of land for a new hospital on the site of what is now the Manx Museum. That support has continued, notably with a substantial contribution towards the construction of the children’s wing of the Isle of Man Hospice, Rebecca House. Although the Trust has funded healthy eating projects in schools, staff training and research, it is the donations of important medical equipment which remains the most visible part of the Trust’s work. Recent donations have included machines which could save the lives of newborns in the neonatal unit, a portable x-ray device to increase the quality of dental care given to those unable to attend clinics and tools which have allowed complex joint surgery to be conducted in the Island, rather than