South Wye Boxing Academy to become temporary NHS satellite clinic

Hereford-based community club South Wye Police Boxing Academy are fighting back during the Coronavirus outbreak.

The club which sits in city centre of had to shut its doors last week in response to the Government advice to close gyms and implement social distancing.

Club leader Vince McNally immediately set to work on researching how the club facilities and members could be utilised to support the local community during these unprecedented times.

“We run a community café throughout the year where members of the public can purchase a hot lunch for £1 and one of our first concerns was how do we ensure that those regular users of the café are not going to go hungry,” said McNally.

“The café is supported very well by local supermarkets and businesses, who donate food, so we decided to collect that food and redistribute it to the community through a local food bank.”

The next phase of the club’s drive to make a difference for the people of Hereford will be starting on 30^th March, following an agreement being put in place with the Wye Valley NHS Trust.

It will see the centre used as a Satellite Clinic to alleviate the demand on the local health service, which the current situation is creating.

McNally added: “We were contacted by Gavin Phillips at the County Hospital who asked if we could help with providing a service to a specialist clinic which deals with sleep disorders and usually operates within the hospital itself.

“The service is used by up to 2,000 patients, who need to use equipment to treat their sleep conditions, along with150 ventilation patients.  These service users are all in the at-risk group and the service is vital for them to continue their daily lives.

“We have agreed to donate the facility for a minimum of two months and our volunteers here at the club are also ready to lend a hand in any way that will help.

“These are difficult times for all our communities and we at the boxing club see ourselves as an essential community service.

“Although we cannot carry out much of our community work and intervention programmes at the moment, we are determined to keep helping our area in any way we can until normal operations can be resumed.”

The centre will be temporarily converted to become the access point for these patients to collect and replenish their equipment.

They will also have access to two health professionals, who will be manning the clinic every day between 9am and 5pm.

“At present, many of our patients are self-isolating or fearful of attending the hospital due to concerns about Coronavirus,” said the Sleep Clinic’s Mr Phillips.

“This will provide a centre outside the hospital and community hospitals, a safe area to provide a satellite sleep clinic to help our patients with access to spare supplies.”