Making a trip to the Sick Kids feel like child's play

Published on Monday 25 February 2008 19:44

FIFTEEN years ago this month, the Sick Kids Friends Foundation was founded to provide support to the 100,000 children who come to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh each year.

When the foundation was set up, it received around 200,000 each year from public donations – today, that figure is closer to 1 million.

The support the foundation offers has made a difference to the lives of hundreds of thousands of children and their families, providing the extras that the NHS cannot afford.

Graeme Millar, the foundation's chairman, says: "No-one would have imagined 15 years ago that the Friends Foundation would have been able to achieve so much to help sick children and their families.

"This is an important milestone for us, but the real credit goes to the many thousands of people who have supported our fundraising campaigns. They have baked cakes, run marathons, abseiled, washed cars, climbed mountains, sung carols – just about kind of challenge or event imaginable. Many people have also left us legacies which are helping children today and in the future."

So how does that money get used? The Sick Kids Friends Foundation aims to provide comfort and support in a wide range of ways. This can mean something as small as a welcome gift for a child arriving at the hospital for the first time, or providing a "reward box" for a child who has undergone an operation, all the way up to buying a new piece of equipment for the hospital, such as a CT scanner.

The foundation also might arrange a visit to a match for a football fan or provide televisions and computers in wards.

Sarah-Jane Watson, from Bonnyrigg, is 17 and has cerebral palsy. She has been coming to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children with her mum, Dianne, since she was a baby, and has received support from the Sick Kids Friends Foundation throughout.

I met Sarah-Jane and Diane at the organisation's drop-in centre, a short walk from the hospital. The centre has been open for 18 months, and provides sick children with a space where they can meet friends, use the internet or just chat to the staff. Most importantly, it's as removed from a typical hospital environment as you could imagine.

It feels more like a home than anything else, with big comfy couches, a kitchen and plenty of tables and chairs to sit around and chat. Bright and open, with laminate wood floors and decorated in pastel shades, there's children's artwork on the walls and plenty to keep them occupied, from books and computers to a Nintendo Wii, which is useful for physiotherapy as well as being good fun.

Sarah-Jane is in her sixth year at school and has come to meet me during one of her free periods. She's busy at school, so it's her first visit to the drop-in centre but, she explains, the foundation has helped her and her family every step of the way.

"Sometimes it's the smaller things that make a big difference," she says. "I don't really like hospitals very much, I hate the way they smell. The Sick Kids Foundation does things that make you feel normal, things that make you feel like you're not in hospital.

"When I was younger, I remember my mum taking my to their playroom. It didn't feel clinical, it just felt like any other playroom."

Since Sarah-Jane first came to the hospital, the foundation has added even more facilities to its playroom, including relaxing fibre-optic lighting that children can safely interact with and even wrap themselves up in.

"I would have loved that!" comments Sarah-Jane. However, she has benefited from the foundation in many other ways.

The foundation raised money for baclofen pumps – which are inserted under the skin and release drugs to relax muscles – before they were available on the NHS. Sarah-Jane had one fitted by the NHS, which made them available after seeing how effective the ones provided by the foundation proved.

"My muscles get very tense, but the baclofen pump helps them to relax so I'm not so stiff," she explains. "It means that I can do more things myself, like putting on make-up, doing my hair or getting dressed. I used to find writing difficult, but it now that my hand can relax more, it's much easier."

Also, when Sarah-Jane was recovering from an operation on her hamstring, the Sick Kids Friends Foundation arranged for Dianne to have accommodation at the hospital.

"Sarah wanted me to be there, and I wanted to be there when she was recovering, but I'd spent nights sleeping in a chair by her bed, and it's not very pleasant," Dianne says.

"This time, the Sick Kids Friends Foundation put me in their accommodation, which was very homely and nicely decorated. When you've got so much on your plate, it's just one less thing to worry about."

Keeping parents and children together, and disrupting children as little as possible is very important to the foundation, which has paid for equipment for the hospital that is not funded from the NHS's budget – equipment that otherwise children might have to go to other hospitals to have access to. For instance, in 2004 it paid for a fully integrated operating theatre system for performing keyhole surgery.

The foundation's plans for the immediate future include bringing internet access into the wards and also a makeover for the hospital's entrance space, turning it into an "indoor garden".

To do so, the foundation continues to rely on donations from the public.

"Every donation matters, whether it be 10p or 10,000," says Millar. "We have put them all to good use and we plan to continue doing so for many years to come."