Joseph’s debt to hospital’s life-savers

6:27pm Thursday 1st May 2008

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MEET Joseph Hadden. He's nine years old, loves sport and has recently started rock-climbing.

But the energetic youngster also suffers from Type I Diabetes and twice in the past year his condition has left him on the brink of death.

If it wasn't for the expert team of nurses and doctors on York Hospital's children ward, Joseph, of Tang Hall, in York, would not be here today. They have also saved the lives of thousands of other youngsters from across York - but the conditions they work in are less than ideal.

With a new purpose-built high-dependency unit with state-of-the-art equipment, York Hospital would be able to offer the best possible care to the city's most seriously-ill children.

The Press's Guardian Angels Appeal is now only £50,000 short of the £300,000 we need to fund these life-saving facilities.

Joseph's mum Della, a teaching assistant at Derwent Infant School, in York, said: "Both times I carried him into hospital like a rag doll - he was unconscious and we thought we had lost him.

"He was taken straight to the high-dependency room, but it's not properly equipped and they had to get all the machines from different parts of the hospital.

"All the staff at York Hospital are fantastic and they've saved Joseph's life twice, but having this new high-dependency unit would make such a difference."

It will give younger patients instant access to everything they need to fight illness or infection, instead of having to wait for ventilators and monitors to be taken from other parts of the hospital.

The unit will also mean far fewer children have to be taken to Leeds or Sheffield for their treatment because York Hospital does not have the necessary technology.

Building work started on the new unit this week and we have launched a final push to reach the £300,000 target.

To make a donation, send cheques or postal orders made out to The Press Guardian Angels Appeal, to Guardian Angels, The Press, 76-86 Walmgate, York, YO1 9YN.

The unit needs your help

Here Joseph gives his own account of his illness, including the two times he was rushed to the high-dependency room on York Hospital's children's ward. The youngster, who is a pupil at Heworth Primary School, must inject himself with insulin four times a day. If he misses a dose, or falls sick with a stomach bug, his life is in danger.

"I first got diabetes when I was six and at first I thought it would be quite hard. I find it a little bit easier now because I have had it for three years and I am used to the injections.

"Sometimes I find it hard because if I do my injections in the same place I get lumps in my tummy and if I prick my finger too often I get sore fingers. It hurts, but I know I have to do it.

"When I have hypos (periods of low blood sugar), I get poorly and I find it annoying because it gets in the way of when I want to do something. If I miss an injection out I will probably be sick the next day and I will have to go into hospital. If I get a tummy bug, I start being sick, then I feel tired and drowsy and I lose quite a bit of weight.

"I feel very poorly and go into ketoacidosis (a life-threatening condition caused by lack of insulin) and when I do go into the hospital, the doctors and nurses really look after me even when I am feeling my worst.

"I have to have canulars put into my hands and arms. This is for the drips and insulin pump that makes me feel better. I feel scared when I am coming around in hospital because I don't know what has happened and I wake up with lots of machines.

"But I feel safe when the nurses look after me in hospital. Sometimes they have to find the machines because other people have them.

"When I did not want my needles taking out, the nurses spent time with me and talked to me. They gave me a snowman and I went home for Christmas.

"Please just give some money to the Guardian Angels Appeal because it all helps to go towards the unit. It will make a child's life better if you give it a little thought and a little money.

"The unit needs your help, like I needed the unit's help."