Deb’s putting on her running shoes to help her patients!

A big UHNM Charity good luck and thank you to Deb Alder, Lead for Ophthalmology in Theatres 6-10 at Royal Stoke who’s now just a month away from running the Stafford Half Marathon for UHNM Charity.

Deb, who’s 43 and from Newcastle-under-Lyme, is taking on the 13.1-mile course to raise funds to help improve the care and experience of patients undergoing surgery at UHNM.

She told us: “In my role I manage the eye theatre in theatres 6-10 at Royal Stoke. We treat up to seven patients a day for procedures like squints and cataracts."

"I’ve been in the role for 15 years now and as well has having an interest in eyes, I love helping people. It’s nice that our patients are awake during surgery as they are usually asleep in other specialities.”

“I’ve never done a run for UHNM Charity before so I thought, why not. Also, I wanted to push myself to do a half marathon as I’ve never done one before. It’ll be the furthest I’ve run- I’ve done 10ks in the past but that was my maximum.”

“My training is going alright and I’m up to nine miles so far. I tend to go after work or at the weekend- my weekends are now full of runs!”

“I chose to fundraise for theatres 6-10 at UHNM because we do all different specialities for both children and adults ranging from ENT, to cancer and emergency surgeries. I just thought it would be a good thing to get some funds to improve the experience of my patients.”

“My message to my fellow staff members or anybody thinking of running for UHNM Charity is just go for it. I’m no spring chicken and I thought I’d just go for it so why not?!”

DONATE