AMODERN telephone system has been installed at a hospice's headquarters.
The £25,000 phone system has been donated by Thomas Howson, managing director of Thornaby-based company Main-Tel, to Butterwick's Hospice Care's centre on the site of North Tees Hospital, Stockton.
Stockton South MP Dari Taylor handed over the system at a ceremony yesterday.
Butterwick Hospice provides free care and support to adults and children suffering from life-threatening illnesses. The new system will enable calls to go through the Internet so they are free and, as part of the package, six mobile phones will operate within a mile-and-a-half radius of the site.
This will mean nurses playing with children will be easily and instantly contactable.
Ms Taylor said: "I cannot praise Mr Howson and Main-Tel highly enough for their generosity to such a good cause.
"I understand that the hospice was desperate to replace the old system and could not have afforded something as high-tech as the system being donated by Mr Howson."
Butterwick Hospice costs about £2m a year to run and is based at sites in Stockton and Bishop Auckland.
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