Wooden Spoon Wales support Noah’s Ark resilience fund
Every year 73,000 children, from across Wales, receive specialist and life-saving treatment at the Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospital in Cardiff and in their communities across the nation.
When the pandemic took hold last year, Noah’s Ark’s fundraising plans came crashing down and further more a one parent policy was introduced in the hospital which made it incredibly challenging for the children admitted to hospital and their families. Because of this the Noah’s Ark resilience fund was set up to allow them to give direct support wherever it was needed.
The Noah’s Ark Resilience fund was supported by Wooden Spoon Wales with emergency funding which was made available in response to the devastating pandemic. The £5,000 Wooden Spoon Wales provided, contributed to a larger funding pot and enabled Noah’s Ark to:
- provide iPads and tablets for the children on the wards
- fund an emergency food bank for parents of the children in hospital as the onsite café was closed.
- establish the star fund providing gifts for NHS workers
- provide walkie talkies to help staff communicate whilst in full PPE
- establish the sparkle fund which gives children special gifts on their birthday.
- meet commitments to the hospital
Eiken’s story
Eiken
On 6th March 2020, just weeks before the country went into lockdown, two year old Eken was rushed to the Noah’s
Ark Children’s Hospital with unexplained breathing difficulties. Within a month, he had been diagnosed with
pleuro pulminary blastoma, a rare form of childhood lung cancer. Eken spent 5 months on Rainbow Ward receiving treatment.
His mum, Hayley says, ‘We spent a lot of time at Noah’s Ark away from our friends and family in Aberystwyth and with the restrictions as well, it was very difficult. Eken was having chemotherapy every week at a high dose.” > Read more here
Taliesin’s story
Taliesin
Baby Taliesin was born three months early in February 2020. He spent over five months in hospital, during which time he was diagnosed with a serious enzyme deficiency called PKU and was treated for several life threatening infections in his blood and bones. Any infection marker over 80 is considered critical. At one point Taliesin’s was 242! For a very long time, Taliesin was kept alive entirely by machines, including a ventilator and 14 different pumps to administer the medicine and nutrients he needed to survive.
Mum Liz says: ‘
“The NICU team in Cardiff were amazing right from the start. I’d never seen anything like it! Taliesin was placed in a state of the art incubator which I found out later had been funded by the Noah’s Ark Charity and, within minutes of us arriving, we were introduced to a new consultant who ordered countless different tests.”
READ MORE HERE
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