Waikato Hospital's Waikids patients were overwhelmed by two local celebrities handing out trolleys full of gifts promoting the Countdown Kids' Hospital Appeal.

Earlier this week The Hits radio hosts Stacey Morrison and Paul Flynn spent time with children in the hospital's newly refurbished Waikids playroom before visiting the paediatric surgical ward.

The Hits radio host Stacey Morrison during a visit this week to Waikato Hospital's Waikids wards. Stacey and co-host Paul Flynn's visit was part of the Countdown Kids' Hospital Appeal. Photo: Waikato DHB

'Although they're battling health wise, we were greeted with brave smiles and many kids and families saying ‘We're so lucky!',” says Stacey and Paul. 'Their attitudes were very inspiring and made our day, we were so happy to bring them the presents Countdown kindly donated, along with the Disney Dominos which light up kids' eyes in an instant.”

Waikids play specialist Meenu Wadhwa says the mountain of presents which were left over from the visit will not go to waste.

The hospital often need little presents to use as rewards after children have gone through procedures, or bigger presents to celebrate milestones in their care or even life, like a birthday.

Understandably, Meenu is in awe of the generosity from The Hits and Countdown.

'We really want to thank The Hits for their time and generosity, but also to say to everyone in the community – your donations really make such a difference to what we do here.”

The hospital has put out a call to help purchase a resuscitaire, which is used to resuscitate and transport newborn and premature babies, a BrainZ monitor which is vital in assessing brain function in newborns and a retinal camera to assess babies' eyes development.

Countdown Waikato group manager Karl Wareham says the appeal was off to a great start, with more than half-a-million dollars raised nationwide in the first fortnight.

'We are selling a mountain of raffle tickets across all 18 stores in the Waikato, with more than 750 tickets sold in just one store,” says Karl.

'Other drives such as Cambridge store's colourful hat competition raised $1,000 from just in-store donations.”

Karl says he was incredibly impressed to see the amount of work that the Countdown teams were putting into this year's appeal.

'The hospital has given us a massive challenge to meet but we know that our communities and Countdown are up for it.”