Hospital cures Y2K bug

By Keith Newman

The Child Cancer Foundation is this week confident it can continue to support families dealing with the tragedy of cancer without fear of its essential systems being shut down by the year 2000 bug.

Jessie Birss, manager of the northern regional division, said computer company PC Hospital had acted as a "knight in shining armour", donating upgrade cards for the foundation's three 486 computers and completing the testing and upgrade work to make them compliant.

The company has also extended the offer to the Central and Canterbury-West Coast divisions of the foundation.

PC Hospital installed fix2000, a board made by Euro 2000. This fits into an internal slot in older computers replacing the CMOS real time clock and providing compliance at the BIOS level, two areas where computers are expected to fail come January 1.

The donation to the northern region of Child Cancer Foundation amounted to about $900, but according to Jessie Birss that's a significant amount for an organisation which relies entirely on public donations.

It means more money is now available to help families of children with cancer.

The foundation which covers the area from Northland to Taranaki provides support services for families facing trauma when their children are being treated for cancer.

"We give financial support to families for food, phone costs for those in danger of being disconnected, petrol vouchers, we loan them cameras and provide information kits."

She said the foundation has a database and produces its newsletter and accounts and fundraising activities on its computer systems.