A former nurse, Jeannette was a co-founder of the Doncaster Cancer Detection Trust (DCDT), a group which has been raising funds to support cancer services in the town for over 40 years. Amongst her many achievements, Jeannette helped to raise millions of pounds for cancer diagnosis, care and treatment, aiding in the purchasing of equipment which helped to bring cancer services to Doncaster, hugely benefitting local patients.
In the early 1970s, Jeannette and the DCDT initially raised £3,000 to buy a piece of equipment called a bronchoscope, which is used to look inside people’s lungs and allows health professionals to take samples for further analysis. This began a journey which has lasted more than four decades, with the charity raising more than £10 million pounds. A significant amount of this money has been used to fund around 100 pieces of state-of-the-art medical equipment at Doncaster Royal Infirmary.
Jeannette was the woman behind an ambitious, but nevertheless successful, fundraising campaign to gather together £600,000 which enabled the hospital to have an MRI scanner on site. Since the scanner was bought in 2012 it has been a vital diagnostic tool, not only for cancer patients but for thousands of others. More recently Jeanette has been supporting DCDT’s successful efforts to raise money for a CT scanner which will be part of the development of a new CT area at DRI.
Never one to rest on past successes, Jeannette came up with many off-the-wall, novelty fundraising campaigns and we believe that her creativity and enthusiasm was key to inspiring the Doncaster public to give generously and contribute to such an important cause. Ever modest, Jeannette never took credit for the success of the charity, but insisted that the people of Doncaster were the real heroes.
In recognition for her efforts, Jeannette received the title of honorary freeman of the borough in 2000 and awarded an MBE in 2012’s New Year’s Honours List. In the future, we will look to similarly recognise this truly remarkable person.
Whilst we are incredibly saddened to hear about Jeannette’s passing, her legacy will live on through the foundations she laid to ensure the people of Doncaster receive the best cancer care, at the right time and as close to home as possible.
Thank you Jeannette,
On behalf of everyone at Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals