The club – whose members include cancer patients, their families and friends – handed the equipment over to Gozo Minister Giovanna Debono. The equipment includes a dialysis chair, wall panels with twin outlets and holter recording.

The dialysis chair and wall panel will be installed in the GGH’s renal unit which was opened in 2000. The number of patients who received treatment at the GGH renal unit increased from five in 2000 to 11 in December last year.

This figure does not include Maltese nationals who may have needed treatment while in Gozo. This year, seven people are receiving treatment at the renal unit as four have been given kidney transplants.

Prior to the donation of the equipment, the unit could treat two people simultaneously and another could make use of equipment in the isolation section. The GGH now has the capacity to treat four people simultaneously.

The holter recording equipment will be used in the ECG Department to carry out heart monitoring and tests.

The existing equipment at GGH, which can be used to treat one patient per week, is being returned to St Luke’s from where it was borrowed.

The donation of this equipment will mean more patients can be treated at St Luke’s and in turn, the waiting list will be shortened. The new GGH equipment can be used to test three patients per week.

Mrs Debono expressed gratitude for the donation and said such initiatives by private entities and NGOs such as the Gozo Cancer Club were to be applauded. She pointed out that the club had already donated a spirometer and a colonfiberscope since it was set up in 1997.

The Gozo Ministry had placed health at the top of its agenda, she said, and had always worked to try and satisfy the health needs of the Gozitan people.

Extensive modernisation work had been carried out at the GGH, including the opening of the renal unit and the isolation unit, the modernising of the records section, the modernising of an operating theatre and the opening of new Outpatients clinics.

Other measures included enlarging Casualty and the refurbishment of various wards.

Mrs Debono said the next plans were for the modernisation of the maternity ward and the construction of a gynaecology unit.