Give to GOSH: The cast of characters whose stories we will be following

We will return to their stories as they undergo new treatments, face new challenges and find out what their futures hold

Jamie Merrill
Monday 23 November 2015 21:01 GMT
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These are just some the faces of GOSH. They are the doctors and nurses who dedicate themselves to keeping the hospital running 24 hours a day, the staff working to improve the lives of sick children, and the patients and their families benefiting from its world-class care. We will be returning to their stories, and many more, as they undergo new treatments, face new challenges and find out what their futures hold...

Elliott Livingstone

Two-year-old Elliott is a “cheeky” little boy who has a Thomas the Tank Engine sticker on his Berlin heart machine, which has kept him alive since his own heart failed eight months ago. Elliott has two tubes pumping blood around his tiny body. It keeps him alive but the machine has left him confined to the wards of Great Ormond Street Hospital until a new heart is found.

Elliott Livingstone
Elliott Livingstone

A third of children like Elliott will die before a new heart becomes available for transplant, which is why The Independent’s Give to GOSH appeal is supporting a new specialist 14-bed unit for children with heart failure.

Melissa Strickland

As the ward sister on Koala Ward, Melissa Strickland leads a nursing team with the challenging job of looking after children with craniofacial and neurological conditions. “You have to have all the skills and knowledge to do this job but personally for me you cannot do it unless you have passion but also compassion,” she said. “You don’t get used to the sad side of things but you do learn to manage it.”

Melissa Strickland (Jon Stead)
Melissa Strickland (Jon Stead)

Amy Willis

Amy Willis carries a discreet black medical bag everywhere she goes. It contains the cutting-edge HeartWare device that is keeping her alive. A smaller, more advanced version of the Berlin artificial heart, it was fitted in April after she was emergency airlifted to GOSH from Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool. The device means that 14-year-old Amy can be home in Flintshire this Christmas while remaining on the heart transplant waiting list. She is doing well but 15 per cent of patients with a HeartWare device or Berlin heart die while waiting for a new heart, so money raised by the appeal will also go to help researchers identify ways to keep children alive while they await transplant.

Amy Willis
Amy Willis

Myra Bluebond-Langner and Finella Craig

Between them, Dr Finella Craig and Professor Myra Bluebond-Langner represent the vital work of the Louis Dundas Centre for Children’s Palliative Care, GOSH’s world-class centre dedicated to research and care for children with life-limiting illnesses. The LDC is named in honour of Louis Dundas, a four-year-old boy who died in “unspeakable pain” after suffering a brain tumour in April 2008. Its aim is to ensure that no child suffers unnecessarily in their final days.

“One of the worst experiences for a family is to witness their child in pain and discomfort, and for them to feel totally powerless to do anything about it,” said Dr Craig, a consultant in paediatric palliative medicine at GOSH since 2002.

Money raised from The Independent’s Give to GOSH appeal will go to fund the team’s work to manage pain, and also fund vital research into palliative care in children across the whole of the UK.

Professor Bluebond-Langner, who heads the research, said: “Paediatric palliative care is a relatively new field where practice has outstripped research. We look to change that.”

Myra Bluebond-Langner
Myra Bluebond-Langner
Finella Craig
Finella Craig

Marley Scott

After three years in and out of GOSH's cardiac ward life is finally starting to return to some form of normality for seven-year-old Marley Scott. He went home last month after a successful heart transplant and is set to be back at his school in Dagenham by January.

The scars from the surgery still show and even now he is allowed few visitors, needs regular check-up treatments and is on a strict regimen of immunosuppressant drugs so his body doesn't reject the new heart, which is expected to last around 15 years. Marley is one of around 20 children a year to get a new heart at GOSH and the Independent will watch as he recovers from the operation his family adjust to his new life. Sadly few children are lucky enough to get a second successful transplant, but his mother Jo says his life has already been transformed by the surgical team at GOSH. "Whatever happens in the future, it's our of our control. I will stay positive and hopeful and try and be as happy as we can for as long as we can."

Marley Scott
Marley Scott

Rowan Pethard

Like most little boys, Rowan Pethard loves playing football. At the start of 2015 the seven-year-old Spurs fan baffled his doctors in Hemel Hempstead with a string of coughs, colds, tummy bugs, aches, pains and rashes. It wasn’t until quite late on that doctors discovered he had leukaemia. He spent two days in intensive care while he had emergency chemo. He has two years of follow-up treatment ahead. “He’s amazing, a little superhero,” his mum said. “It makes it easier for his father and I and his brother to cope.”

Rowan Pethard
Rowan Pethard

Martin Elliott

Paediatric heart and lung surgeon Martin Elliott, 64, is one of the longest serving doctors at GOSH, leading groundbreaking research and treating thousands of patients over the past 30 years. His work has bridged the gap between surgery and research with skills ranging from heart-bypass surgery to correcting congenital lung disorders.

Martin Elliott
Martin Elliott

Ralph Frost

For Ralph the hardest thing about having to live at GOSH while he waits for a new kidney isn’t missing his toys. He has plenty of those and can terrorise the nurses by pushing his little red motorbike down the corridors of Eagle Ward. The hardest thing for the six-year-old is battling not to cry out during his nightly dialysis sessions. “It really hurts,” he said. “But the other kids are sleeping and I don’t want to wake them up.” Ralph suffers from nephrotic syndrome and is currently waiting for a kidney from his father, Nick. He’s called the kidney “Chase” and his parents, who have been trained to operate his dialysis machine, hope to be home by Christmas.

Ralph Frost
Ralph Frost

Lynsey Steele

The strongest praise for Lynsey Steele, 33, comes from the parents of the children she helps. “The children here wouldn’t get by without Lynsey,” said Ralph’s mother Amie Frost. “If she wasn’t here then we’d have cracked up.” Lynsey’s role, which is funded by the Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity and will be supported by The Independent’s Give to GOSH appeal, is to help children play and relax, but also to have the difficult conversations explaining their treatment.

Lynsey Steele
Lynsey Steele

Faiza Yasin

GOSH means the world to Faiza Yasin. The hospital saved her life as a child when she admitted with congenital heart disease. She says she "grew up" in the hospital, where she twice underwent open-heart surgery as a teenager, and last week she fulfilled a childhood dream when she walked onto Puffin Ward for her first shift as a healthcare assistant at the hospital.

Speaking to the Independent mid-way through her first training shift, she said: "This is a dream come true for me. People say home is where the heart is, but my heart is here."

Faiza Yasin
Faiza Yasin

Over the next few months The Independent will follow Faiza, 21, as she undergoes training for her new role. Her eventual "dream" though is to one day become a cardiac nurse on Bear Ward, where she was treated as a child when it was known as Ladybird Ward. "I just want to help other kids who are going through what I went through. To make them smile... and show them that everything is OK."

Chaplain Jim Linthicum

For a man who deals with grief and pain on a daily basis and is constantly on-call to support spiritual needs of the patients and staff of GOSH, Jim Linthicum walks around his beautiful chapel with an optimistic smile on his face. Jim joined GOSH as chaplain in 2006 and alongside a team of imams and other faith leaders is supported by the hospital's charitable arm.

Chaplain Jim Linthicum
Chaplain Jim Linthicum

When not out on the wards comforting patients he is found among the dark wooden pews of the hospital's 19th century chapel, where he carries out baptisms and marriage blessing. "We don't operate on the model that everyone is religious, but we do operate on the model that everyone is spiritual," he said. "We are not angels of death at the bedside... we are here to make meaning." As well as serving the hospital's immediate spiritual needs, Jim is also London's representative for the College of Healthcare Chaplains, where he works on issues of the spirituality of children, medical ethics and what he calls "hope and transcendence".

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