Amateur football clubs lend hospitals life-saving kit

Grassroots football clubs have loaned defibrillators to the NHS as part of the fight against Covid-19.

The 12 life-saving machines were collected from local clubs by Sunderland’s Football Hub network and will be lent to the South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust.

Clubs followed Government advice earlier this month and suspended all fixtures, with all results from below the third-tier of non-league football now expunged for the 2019-20 season.

Some of them had bought their own defibrillators, which deliver a high-energy electric shock to the heart when a person is in a cardiac arrest, as part of their first aid equipment.

They responded to an appeal on social media to lend their machines to the NHS.

Fiona Brown, Sunderland City Council’s executive director of neighbourhood services, said: “Doors have closed for now on our football hubs and with the suspension of all amateur games, it was plain to see that this life-saving equipment could be put to other possible uses.

“It is only right and correct that these essential medical kits are now with our colleagues at the NHS who may yet need them.

“Thank you to all the clubs that have taken up the appeal.”

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