Edge's News: BRITAIN'S richest woman Kirsten Rausing Donates £400,000 for a piece of hospital kit that will 'transform lives'.

Dr. Rausing, 69, who according to the Sunday Times Rich List is worth £13billion, covered the fee of the state-of-the-art CT scanner at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge.

Newmarket-based racehorse owner, breeder, and philanthropist Dr Kirsten Rausing has paid for a state-of-the-art CT scanner which has been installed at Addenbrooke’s Hospital and has seen its first patient.

The 3D Cone Beam scanner, which cost £400,000, makes the hospital the first in the east of England to offer in-house digital 3D surgical planning.

Dr Rausing is based in racing HQ Newmarket and owns Lanwades Stud, breeding top class winners all over the world. Private and extremely knowledgeable about racing, Dr Rausing has never married and doesn't have any children.

She was named the 150th richest person in the world by Forbes in 2020, while the Sunday Times placed her seventh on the British rich list. Dr Rausing was thrust into the world of business and racehorse breeding at the age of 15, according to The Mirror.

They say Ruben left a young Kirsten in charge of his stud farm in Sweden and she flourished, running the farm and business for ten years. She then set up another in Ireland before making her home in Newmarket in 1980.

Recalling the start of her epic rise, Dr Rausing said it was difficult at first because she was a woman in a predominantly male sport.

She told the Racing Post: "I had the dual disadvantage of being a girl and a foreigner with no family ties in the industry. "In one way it helped that I was so obviously foreign, so exotic, that nobody could quite pigeonhole me."

Doctors say it could greatly improve the life chances of many patients as it will not only dramatically cut surgery times and transform the lives of some patients with head and neck cancer, but will also help those with facial trauma, dental problems and children born with a cleft lip and palate.

The money for the scanner, which is so-called because of the precise cone or funnel it creates around the affected area, came through Dr Rausing’s Newmarket-based Alborada Trust, which is named after her dual Champion Stakes-winning mare bred at her Lanwades Stud at Moulton.

“Having previously supported several 3D imaging projects at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, the trust was pleased to provide funding for the Cone Beam CT scanner, reducing surgery times by up to 60 per cent for some patients and sparing the need for patients to travel to other hospitals for treatment,” said trust director Jeremy Richardson.

“We really wanted to help dramatically cut surgery times and transform the lives of patients.”

Shelly Thake, chief executive of the Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (ACT), said: “For some, the use of this cutting-edge technology could mean the difference between life and death and we’d like to thank the Alborada Trust for making this service possible and everyone else who donated.

“It will make a huge difference to so many head and neck cancer patients needing surgery at Addenbrooke’s.”

In 2018 the trust gave £5 million to Alzheimer’s Research UK through the Alborada Drug Discovery Institute to support five years of research.

This followed on from the trust’s previous support of the Alzheimer’s Research UK Stem Cell Research Centre at the University of Cambridge. 

And two years later, when the coronavirus pandemic took hold, the trust donated £25,000 to the Suffolk County Community Coronavirus Fund and £20,000 each to the Newmarket Racing Centre and the Newmarket Day Centre.