Deserved recognition for heroes among us

Louise Sansom nominated paediatric oncology outreach nurse specialist Zoe Hines for the Hospital Heroes award after daughter Ella Maylor was diagnosed with leukaemia last year.

The full-time mother said the John Radcliffe Hospital nurse has provided her family with ongoing support since Ella left hospital in January.

Miss Sansom, from Banbury, said after hearing Mrs Hines had been shortlisted for the individual award: “I was really, really delighted.

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“It was really nice to know that she had been recognised and for someone to recognise the importance of her job.

“I think it would be absolutely amazing if she won.”

The family first met Mrs Hines, who travels to their home in the weeks Ella doesn’t go to hospital to undertake blood tests and change Ella’s dressings.

Miss Sansom said without Mrs Hines’ visits the family would have to endure weekly 45-minute trips to the Headington hospital. She said: “Because she is not on the ward every day, her job could just be overlooked. But actually, from our point of view, she is one of the most important parts.

“She has made our lives hundreds and hundreds times easier because she comes to us. I don’t know if we would be as positive as a family and able to get on with life as we are.

“Because we have that support from Zoe and knowing I don’t have to worry about anything, it means we feel a lot happier about the situation as a family.

“She is just always at the end of the phone. She will always make me feel better straight away. She is just amazing and she is lovely with Ella.”

Although the youngster is now in remission, she faces chemotherapy sessions until March 2016 to maintain her current condition.

Miss Sansom said: “I think that was one of the hardest things to understand – that we knew we would have to have at least two years of treatment and that was going to have an impossible effect on our lives.”

The 31-year-old said Ella became ill in the month before she was diagnosed with cancer, suffering with frequent infections which did not improve with medication. After a series of blood tests, Ella became a patient at Banbury’s Horton Hospital on November 27 when medics became worried about her low blood counts.

Ella needed a blood transfusion soon after and was transferred to the John Radcliffe before a bone marrow biopsy on December 2. But the next day she was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.

Miss Sansom said: “To be an in-patient was a huge shock to all of us, especially with the build-up to Christmas. I had all these plans I was going to do with the family in December and suddenly that was gone. It was heartbreaking.”

Ella, who attends Banbury’s St Mary’s Playgroup, then began chemotherapy before returning home just before Christmas.

Mother-of-three Mrs Hines said about the nomination: “I was very touched. It was quite overwhelming I suppose, you don’t expect it. Ella has been a pleasure to look after, who has obviously been through a lot. You’re a nurse and it’s your job and you just want to do the best for them.”

The Hospital Heroes awards ceremony is set to take place exactly a year after Ella was diagnosed with the cancer. Miss Sansom said: “It would be quite incredible if a date we are not looking forward to turns out to be a really good day.”

Team nomination

HOLDING her baby for the first time was a Mother’s Day gift Faye Rose will never forget.

Her son Harry was born 11 weeks early and in the first two months of his life needed round-the-clock care on a ventilator. 

As far as Mrs Rose is concerned, it was the “outstanding” care from Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU) that allowed her a precious moment she feared might never happen. 

Harry soon after his birth

Now blessed with a happy, healthy two-year-old, Mrs Rose has nominated the JR department for the Hospital Heroes Team award. 

Mrs Rose, from Rose Hill, said: “I cannot thank the unit enough and I’m sure many other parents feel exactly the same.

“They saved my little boy’s life and they save thousands of babies’ lives each year. I’m really, really happy for them, they deserve it. I can never repay them enough.”

Mrs Rose, a nursery nurse at Pegasus Primary School,  Blackbird Leys, said complications began when she started suffering with swelling to her hands, feet and face at about 25 weeks pregnant.

After being diagnosed with pre-eclampsia, a condition thought to be caused by problems with the placenta, she was referred to the Headington hospital in February 2012 and admitted to its Silver Star Unit, for mothers with medical complications during pregnancy. Three weeks later, she had an emergency Caesarean section, delivering Harry on March 14 weighing 2lb 3oz.

From left, senior nurse Loris King, Faye Rose and Harry in May 2012

She said: “I spent the entire time in hospital crying. I was just devastated really because everything had gone so well and you picture this perfect pregnancy and for everything to go downhill so quickly, it was not nice. But I did not care about me, it was just about my baby. It was very terrifying.”

For his two months on a ventilator, dedicated nurses in SCBU provided Harry and his mum with all the support they needed. Mrs Rose said the entire team supported her while she learnt how to care for Harry, including helping her to change his nappies as she was “too frightened” to touch him.

When she was able to hold her son for the first time on Mother’s Day, she said nurse Loris King had made her a card from Harry and placed it in his incubator.
She added: “It was just little things like that that you would not get because your baby is in hospital.”

Senior nurse Ms King said of the nomination: “I was shocked, absolutely shocked. Mothers just want their baby to be well and to take them home and not to be in a unit and in an incubator – that’s not how it’s supposed to be. We have to get them through that first disaster.

Harry and Loris King

“We’ve to be strong enough, professional enough and communicative enough to let them know their baby is in good hands.”

Mrs Rose, who is now 32 weeks’ pregnant with her second child, said: “Without them Harry would definitely not have survived. 

“I think in Oxford we are lucky because I saw mothers coming from all over the county and having to travel from places where they don’t have such a good neonatal unit.”

She said Harry, who left the hospital on June 1, is now “absolutely fine” and attends Sandhills Pre-School Playgroup, Headington.

The response

Oxford Mail Editor Simon O’Neill, left, and Oxford University Hospitals Trust chief executive Sir Jonathan Michael look through the ten nominations  

• NOMINATIONS for the second Hospital Heroes awards flooded in after we launched the scheme in July
• To celebrate the outstanding work of our hospital staff, we invited readers to tell us about the unsung heroes who have made a real difference in their lives
• From nurses, midwives, porters, consultants, healthcare assistants and volunteers, to all those behind-the-scenes, we have spent months searching for our Hospital Heroes of 2014
• The awards were launched last year when the Oxford Mail joined forces with the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust to coincide with the 65th anniversary of the NHS
• The trust runs Oxford’s John Radcliffe and Churchill hospitals, as well as the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre and Banbury’s Horton General.

Difficult job to choose the winners from our shortlist

• THE Oxford Mail has teamed up with Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust to celebrate the outstanding work of its hospital staff
•  We were inundated with entries. Finalists for this year’s Hospital Heroes awards have been chosen and a total of 10 entries for the individual and 
• team awards have been shortlisted
• Each week we will reveal one individual and one team who have made the grade for the shortlist
•  Deserving nominations have been received within the two categories, the Hospital Heroes Team award and the Hospital Heroes Individual award
• Now Oxford Mail Editor Simon O’Neill, along with trust chief executive Sir Jonathan Michael, will have the difficult task of selecting the winners from the ten shortlisted entries
• Winners are set to be revealed on Wednesday, December 3, during the trust’s annual staff awards evening.

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