Donations to our Covid-19 Urgent Appeal have meant that parents like Emma and Craig Stringfellow didn’t have to travel the 100-mile round trip to their home in Leicestershire when their newborn son Harrison needed intensive care treatment for a rare condition called Hypoplastic Right Heart Syndrome.
Birmingham Children’s Hospital Charity has so far received more than £75,000 from our national campaign. Two charitable Trusts to Birmingham Children’s Hospital Charity also donated funds to provide accommodation for families whose children are receiving specialist care at the hospital, which has increased its intensive care capacity and treated more of the sickest children from across the Midlands in support of other NHS Trusts in the region.
Harrison’s dad Craig said:
“We can’t even begin to express how much a difference being able to stay in the apartment has made to this whole experience. When you’re in that situation, you’ll do anything you have to, but travelling back and forth to the hospital, and being so far away from Harrison at night was just excruciating for Emma and you could see it just wasn’t sustainable.
“At such a distressing time in our lives, having this accommodation arranged and taken care of feels like a massive weight has been lifted. It’s such a simple thing, but knowing that we’re both close by should anything happen is the biggest reassurance for us.”
When Harrison was born, his rare condition meant that his heart had not formed in the right way. But Birmingham Children’s Hospital’s world-renowned cardiology unit meant that he could undergo life-saving open-heart surgery and he is well on the way to recovery.
The hospital has used funds from NHS Charities Together, as well as generous contributions from the Eveson Charitable Trust and the Hobson Charity, to provide overnight accommodation in the nearby Staycity Apartments and Holiday Inn.
Louise McCathie, Fundraising Director at Birmingham Children’s Hospital Charity, said:
“The money donated by the public to NHS Charities Together, as well as generous donations by the Eveson Charitable Trust and the Hobson Charity, have enabled us to ease the worry of overnight accommodation for those families traveling from across to country to get specialist care at our Children’s Hospital.”
