Message from my sister: 

Why do we need your help? Well, the essence of it is that St George’s, despite delivering genuinely world-leading care, is woefully underequipped for the children and families that rely upon its services. The three paediatric wards date from the 1970s, and are simply unsuited to modern care: from the sharing of bays by all ages and genders, to the lack of basic hygiene facilities. The Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) is too small, too cramped, and unable to treat life-threateningly sick children. I hope that you could provide a crucial difference to making lasting changes to the experience of families experiencing their lowest points.

St George’s does wonderful things. It is one of only a handful of hospitals in the country that can undertake the lifesaving surgery my family has benefited from. But, unlike most of those, it does not have the big name, or the shiny lights and sparkly charities with all of the marketing pzazz that brings in the funding. It is not GOSH, or Alderhey. The medics are superb. But they are impacted by the failing facilities at St George’s.

Now that Henrietta is older, her NICU days are behind us. She now predominantly stays in Nicholls ward, the paediatric surgical and neuroscience ward. Nicholls ward has 19 beds on the ward, with up to 8 side rooms. She has also stayed in Freddie Hewitt ward (twice, just over a year apart, with the same toilet being without a lock for the entire time).

The facilities for patients and families on Nicholls ward are nothing short of atrocious. Your child facing surgery is one of every parent’s worse nightmares. You’re scared, anxious, and you want nothing more than the safety of your child. When you arrive in Nicholls ward, you are greeted by cramped conditions and a sea of grey. The 1970s facilities are failing, for staff and for patients. In all of our admissions there (including non-surgical observation and investigation stays), never once have all the lights worked (manageable in high summer; challenging in the depths of winter!). It is something of an understatement to say that the temperature on the single glazed wards are variable. In the winter the wind rushes in, freezing the people nearest the window. In the summer the same beds swelter like inhabitants of a greenhouse.

One parent is able to stay on a fold out chair-bed next to their child. Many of those beds are sadly broken, resulting in parents attempting to rest in peculiar (and decidedly uncomfortable) positions. As in NICU, there is little to no privacy, with one small family room available for the entire ward, meaning that difficult discussions invariably happen on the ward, with little more than a curtain for privacy.

You will doubtless remember the furore when single sex wards were being campaigned for, and the outrage that (in particular) elderly patients, male and female, were sharing wards. It was April 2011 when the government introduced fines where hospitals were allowing mixed sex adult wards. However, the nature of the paediatric wards at St George’s mean that not only mixed sex, but also mixed age, wards are the norm. Our first admission to Nicholls ward was when Henrietta was four weeks old. We were one of four bays in our area of the ward: diagonally opposite us was a teenage boy, months away from turning 18. Alongside us were two other children. I have no doubt whatsoever that one of the last things a teenage boy needed to aid his recovery was being woken by the cries of a newborn child, or of the toddler also in our bay of four beds. As a tired and distressed mum to that four week old baby, I struggled with the stress of trying to keep her calm and not disturb other patients. Every single time Henrietta has been admitted, we have encountered a range of ages, and of genders. It simply is not acceptable. 

There are only a handful of toilets on Nicholls ward, each of which is reminiscent of horrible school toilets. Two to a room, with grimy walls, flimsy partitions, and invariably more broken parts than I care to mention. There is only one bathroom. Yes, you did read that correctly. For 19 beds, and accompanying parents/guardians, there is only one bathroom. It contains a very large, cold bath (invariably found without a plug) and a meagre shower. It is not just the parent shower: it is the shower for the patients too. Frederick Hewitt ward has 17 beds, and sometimes has two working showers, albeit we haven’t experienced both functioning at the same time.
It sounds trivial, but parents want to be clean and not to feel embarrassed when dealing with highly trained medics, at a time when they are scared and frightened. They want their children to be safe, clean and warm. They do not want the worst of school toilets.

The lack of suitable facilities is something that impacts the most underprivileged the most: those who already feel inadequate, and inferior to the medics, those who struggle with the language, or who worse still fear that their views are being disregarded. For those parents and patients, the inability to access basic hygiene facilities only serves to heighten their feelings of insecurity, and the stress that they are under.
It also impacts upon the patients: the children. For example, young children often use bath time as part of their routine. Amidst the disorientation of time on a hospital ward, this is yet another disruption to their young lives. Older children and teenagers need to be able to wash, and the lack of facilities undoubtedly impacts their wellbeing, as if being confined to a hospital bed was not bad enough.
Likewise, the grey, lifeless dilapidated wards are soul destroying for children. They are disheartening, especially when one is stuck there for day after day after day. The facilities are simply not conducive to the wellbeing and recovery of the patients the staff care for so well.

From St George’s: 

Our care is outstanding, but our facilities are not. With your help, we can realise our most ambitious appeal to date - to raise £5m by 2024 to help transform children's services at one of the busiest hospitals in the country.Your support will help us to contribute towards the cost of:- Expanding our Paediatric Intensive Care Unit, adding four more beds and space for families- Transforming our tired childrens wards- Providing better facilities for our staff, so they can feel proud of where they workOur patients, our families and our staff deserve so much better. Help us to transform Children's Services at St George's.