28-Nov-2024
Volunteers from Barter Durgan deliver pizzas to hospital children’s ward
Volunteers from Barter Durgan delivered pizzas to the main children’s ward at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth.
Barter Durgan teamed up with charity Sophie’s Legacy which organises for pizzas to be delivered to patients and relatives on children’s wards at hospitals including in Portsmouth, Chichester, Isle of Wight, Poole NICU and Royal Marsden Hospitals.
Under the banner of “Sophie’s Saturday Night Suppers”, the pizzas are delivered each week.
Emma Zeqo from Barter Durgan said: “Sophie’s Legacy does really important work in supporting parents when they have a child in hospital. Sophie’s Saturday Night Suppers is part of that and is such a great idea and we were very happy to support it.”
Segensworth-based Sophie’s Legacy https://www.sophieslegacy.co.uk/ was set up in memory of Sophie Fairall. Sophie had just turned nine when she was diagnosed with a rare form of childhood cancer called Rhabdomyosarcoma in September 2020. During her treatment, she endured nine rounds of intense chemotherapy and seven weeks of radiotherapy.
Sophie never managed to get into remission and in June 2021, after only eight weeks on a programme of maintenance chemotherapy, she relapsed. With no treatment options left Sophie passed away aged ten, in September 2021, just one year after her diagnosis.
Sophie’s Legacy seeks to enact the changes that Sophie wanted to happen including: a play specialist in hospital seven days a week, improvement to food for children in hospital, parents to be fed when staying with their child, for health professionals to be trained in childhood cancer and for an increase in funding for research into childhood cancer.
An important ethos of the charity is to support families locally who end up in hospital with their child. The support varies depending on each situation but the following are regularly offered on a referral basis:
- Help with transport costs (fuel vouchers, bus or train passes or taxis)
- Clothes when admitted in an emergency with their child
- Birthday parties in hospital for children and parents
- Emotional support
- End of life wishes for children and their families
- Vouchers for meals at the hospital restaurant or shops such as M&S
- Costa vouchers
- Beauty treatments such as nails, haircut or back massage when a parent needs it – this tends to be for the parents who are in for long stays.
The charity also provides hospital wards with:
- Snack and toiletry boxes in every parent room / kitchen
- Frozen meals from Cook
- Art practitioner at Portsmouth Hospital and in the community for children who spend long periods of time in hospital
- Parent packs which contain essential toiletry items, phone chargers, notepad and pen, snack etc.
- A trolley of food, drink and toiletries seven days a week at QA Hospital for parents on CAU and children’s wards
