Tsunami injured donate $100K to Thai hospital

An Australian couple injured in the Boxing Day tsunamis in Thailand will today board a flight back to Phuket to hand over money for the hospital that treated them.

Les and Dianne Boardman from Cronulla in Sydney's south helped raise $100,000 for the Wachira Hospital.

Representatives of the Thai Government and the Australian Head of Mission in Bangkok will attend a ceremony to hand over the money on Monday.

Dianne Boardman says they want to make sure the money goes directly to improving the hospital.

"The money's going to actually go to the hospital for equipment which we'll get to understand and see and every item will be on a piece of paper.

"I thought I'd like to try do something for those conditions because they were working so hard for everybody to survive," she said.

--abc.net.au 2005-07-23

You can see a mini-video and a photo on this from our broadcast at

http://www.thaisnews.com/news_detail.php?newsid=137346

text is below

Special Report for Andaman News TV11 & FM90.5 Phuket Wednesday 27 July

On Monday this week, an Australian couple returned to Phuket to present almost 90,000 Australian dollars or about 2.9 million baht they raised for Wachira Hospital in Phuket, where they were treated after being caught up in the tsunami at Patong on 26 December 2004.

Les & Dianne Boardman from Sydney presented the money to Dr Jesada Jongpaiboonpattana, Director of Wachira Hospital, witnessed by Perry Head, Deputy Head of Mission at the Australian Embassy, and expressed their deep appreciation to all the hospital doctors, nurses and staff here.

We asked them first to explain what happened on the fateful day in December:

Diane joked it was like being on a TV comedy about a hospital:

The couple explained how they raised so much money in Australia:

This money will be used to buy infusion pumps and other medical equipment for the Intensive Care Unit or ICU to make the work of the fine doctors and nurses at Wachira Hospital safer and easier.

Just before they returned to Wachira Hospital, they were staying at Holiday Inn Resort in Patong, where they first experienced the December tsunami, and last Sunday night they were there again when another tsunami warning came in. But they also told us the funny side of this experience:

So would they return again hopefully for a normal quiet holiday here?

So despite seeing the worst of what nature can hit them with, they also saw the love and care of the Thai staff, and were so pleased to reward the hospital, enjoy some funny memories together again, and look forward to a better future.