This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Newborn Intensive Care Foundation. Founder and chairman Peter Cursley tells ROD HENSHAW his team has worked tirelessly to raise an estimated $8 million in cash and kind.

Even after three decades, there remains, understandably, an underlying sense of grief for Peter Cursley, having lost two loved ones in less than two years.

In November, 1993, Peter and his wife, Susan, welcomed their newborn, Hanna, into the world at Canberra Hospital. Their joy was short-lived. Hanna died just a few days later.

“I think that anything that’s negative, you’ve got to put a positive spin on it. That’s basically what Susan and I tried to do initially”, Peter said.

“Although we lost Hanna, the staff at the hospital were just absolutely brilliant – and throughout that, we wanted to say ‘thank you’.”

During talks with the hospital’s senior neonatal people, Peter and Susan learnt that there had been nothing in the ACT health budget for two years and the list for much-needed new equipment was immense.

“When I saw that wish list, I thought there was no way in the world we could make a dent in that.

“That’s where the thought of forming a foundation came about,” he said.

Peter and Susan had just started putting plans in place to establish a foundation to raise funds to buy essential equipment to enable sick and premature newborn babies get home from hospital sooner when the couple were struck with a double whammy.

Just two months after losing Hanna, Susan was diagnosed with a brain tumour and the prognosis was the cruellest imaginable. Despite battling through surgeries, alternative medicines and anything they could get their hands on, Susan succumbed to the deadly tumour just 18 months after being diagnosed.

Peter found solace in his grief by deciding to honour the commitment he and Susan had made nearly two years earlier to set up a charitable foundation.

And so, in November, 1995, the Newborn Intensive Care Foundation was launched. 

This year marks the 30th anniversary and as founder and chairman, Peter and his team have worked tirelessly to ensure the foundation has gone from strength to strength having raised an estimated $8 million in cash and kind.

The Newborn Intensive Care Foundation is 100 per cent voluntary and 100 per cent of the funds raised go directly to helping sick and premature babies from the Canberra region.

“It started in very humble beginnings. The first thing we bought was a breast pump then a reclining nursing chair. We’ve been very lucky having the community get behind us.

“The fact that they’re sick little babies brings people in.”

The success of the Newborn Intensive Care Foundation can be measured in a number of ways, not the least the longevity of the board – they’ve all been with him throughout the 30-year journey,

And Peter’s distinctly simple approach to just getting things done.

“When the director of neonatology writes to me and says ‘will the foundation purchase whatever,’ I go to my board and say ‘are you happy if we purchase X, Y or Z?’ 

“They never say no.

“And within 72 hours max, I can get back to the hospital and say ‘yes, we’ll fund it’ because we’ve got that nest egg there.”

But hang on, shouldn’t it be up to ACT Health to provide those essential items? Peter’s response is twofold. 

“One, if we wanted the government to supply the sort of equipment that we fund, they’re going to have to tax us more. I’m not entirely confident they would spend the money in the right areas.

“With a charitable foundation, you make a donation to whatever charity you’re interested in and you know where the money is going. You’ve got control over it.”

His second point relates to the effectiveness or quality of equipment likely to be provided by the government versus the model funded by the foundation.

He gives an example whereby a certain ventilator used in many hospitals basically forces oxygen into the baby and they breathe for the baby. The version favoured by the foundation goes further.

“It reads what the baby is breathing in and it just tops up. The benefit is that the baby’s lungs have to work for themselves, they get stronger and the baby gets healthier sooner. So, we just take that next level up.”

Peter Cursley reels off any number of examples, where Canberra Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit or Special Care Nursery have benefitted from the foundation’s efforts; all of them impressive and all which have made a difference to about 800 babies a year from the Canberra region who pass through the hospital.

The fundraising function is straightforward. Apart from the annual Bake for Babies challenge, Peter’s philosophy is to depend on small donations, but lots of them. Unlike many charities, Peter shies away from using the extensive data base for fund raising.

“I don’t think people appreciate being hounded and going back at them saying ‘here’s another reason to be giving to us’.

“It’s interesting how $5 here, $2 there, $10 or $20, how it all adds up.”