Our Charity Partner

Childhood illness can have a devastating effect on families. Ronald McDonald House Charities helps reduce the stress, anxiety and financial burden for families when they are accessing medical care for their child.

Ronald McDonald House Charities North Australia has been caring for seriously ill children and their families from regional North Australia communities at their hospital-adjacent House since 2004.

Located at Townsville Hospital, their House can accommodate over 100 people each night. The average length of stay for these families is 2-3 months. They assist with travel, clothing, food and other essentials that families need during a medical emergency. The families they care for come from across the North Queensland region, including Cairns and Hinterland, Mackay, Rockhampton and the Whitsundays region, Townsville and surrounds, and Mount Isa and North and Central West Queensland.

In addition to hospital-adjacent accommodation, Ronald McDonald House Charities North Australia Chapter also provides other practical programs and supportive care services to help care for sick kids. Their Learning Program, which operates across the North Queensland region and into the Northern Territory, allows children that have suffered serious and chronic illness to catch up on their schooling and provides scholarships to assist with further education, ensuring every child has the opportunity to reach their full potential.

Their Family Retreat in Palm Cove gives families with a critically sick child the chance to take time out together for a fun family holiday or space to recover from a bereavement. Their Family Room, located within Townsville Hospital, is a ‘home-within-the-hospital’ and provides a place of respite away from clinical areas for the entire family to share a meal, shower, wash clothes, relax or catch up on sleep whilst they are visiting their sick little one in hospital.

As a charity they rely solely on the generosity of the Queensland community to allow them to continue to care for sick children and their families when they need it most.

Since 1991 Ronald McDonald House South East Queensland Chapter has housed families that have had to travel to Brisbane with their ill children for specialist treatment that live more than 50km from the treating hospital.

The South East Queensland Chapter has two Houses, Ronald McDonald House Herston that is located next to the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital and the Ronald McDonald House South Brisbane that is located directly across the road from Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital.

They also have three family rooms at the Gold Coast Hospital NICU, the Gold Coast Hospital Children’s Ward and at Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital.