When the experts in woodwork and metalwork at Dubbo Community Men’s Shed join forces, the community benefits.
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On Friday the bosses of the two workshops, John Gibson, John Page and Barry Sutherland, headed to Dubbo Hospital to check out their handiwork, a set of physiotherapy steps.
Western Districts Memorial Park has covered the $750 cost of building the stairs and donated them to the hospital.
The stairs made of timber and metal tubing will help determine if surgical patients are ready to go home.
It’s the second set of steps built at the men’s shed for the hospital, which commissioned the first set now being used in extended day surgery.
READ MORE: Men’s shed opens doors to the public.
The men’s shed members and a customer service representative of Western Districts Memorial Park, Gwynn Szoko, were greeted with smiles at the hospital on Friday morning.
Physiotherapist Beverley Duke, nurse unit manager of the surgical unit Jerry Yu and deputy director of nursing Tracy Wittich were keen to express their gratitude.
Ms Duke said the new stairs would help in assessing patients’ ability to manage them. “Many of our patients, particularly in outlying peripheral areas, have stairs in their homes and so we need to make sure they are safe either on crutches or on a waking stick before they go home,” she said.
Mr Yu said the donation was heartwarming and “really beneficial for our patients”.
Ms Szoko said the stairs would be “so very useful for both the hospital and patients”.
She called the men’s shed a “fantastic organisation”.
“It’s an honour to be part of it (the project),” Ms Szoko said.
The men’s shed undertakes two or three major community projects a year and many small projects to help individuals, particularly senior residents of the city.
“We just enjoy being involved in the community,” John Gibson said.
“It also helps the men themselves. Quite a lot of the men are single because their partners have passed. Others are aged and have nowhere to go and their wives want them out of the house.”
Mr Gibson imagines the stairs will be “very well used”.
“But hopefully not by me,” he said.