IT'S a photograph little Tanika Rochford may one day look back on to truly appreciate the blessing she has so generously been given at such a young age.

Hand in hand with great Australian, TV journalist and long-standing patron of the Humpty Dumpty Foundation Ray Martin, six-month-old Tanika, who suffers a respiratory condition, owes her life to medical equipment the charity has bought for the Coffs Harbour Health Campus.

Her mother Sharna, who said she will be eternally thankful, summed it up best that Tanika's life has been changed by the charity's legacy here in Coffs Harbour.

"As a mother it means the world to me," Sharna said.

The Humpty Dumpty Foundation has bought medical equipment totalling almost $100,000 for Coffs Harbour Hospital, including the respiratory machine that is keeping Tanika alive.

"The easy part is raising money, the hard part is doing what these doctors, nurses and hospital staff do but what we need to do is give them the right machinery to do the best they can do," Raysaid.

"The very least we can do is to give these fantastic hospital staff the machinery they need to do their best.

"So often people presume that governments are going to buy this equipment for our hospitals but governments ofwhatever political persuasion just don't have a bottomless pit of funds, they just don't have money for everything and medicine andhospitals are very, veryexpensive.

"We are a rich society and we need to be more generous and that's not through tax dollars, that's just simply deciding that if we are going to help somebody and in this case the hospitals we need to give and this charity is really quite unique in that respect.

"The truth and the fact of life is that the Humpty Dumpty Foundation is saving children's lives."

In buying medical machinery directly for hospitals the charity prides itself on having minimal administration costs.

The Humpty Dumpty Foundation has donated about $40 million to Australian hospitals over the past 20 years and continues to field valid and essential requests from hospitals, which are assessed by a panel of medical specialists and funded in order of need.