Thank you for fifteen wonderful years of support for the Sick Kids Friends Foundation
We are celebrating the fact that your support has helped make life better for some of Scotland’s sickest children as the Sick Kids Friends Foundation reaches its 15th anniversary.
You helped the charity raise more than £11 million since 1992 - £2000 for every day it has existed - which has made a huge difference to the time spent in hospital for thousands of Scots children.
It has allowed major developments to take place here at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children which provides specialist services for children in the east of Scotland, from Shetland to the Borders. These have included:
- a retrieval system to bring children in from outlying hospitals all over Scotland when they are in critical condition (1996)
- a chapel and family centre (1997)
- a CT scanner (1999) which was then replaced with a newer, more sophisticated scanner (2006)
- a gamma camera to carry out highly accurate imaging for children with kidney problems and cancer (2000)
- KIDSnet, the unique system that allows children to use computers when they are in hospital (2001)
- purpose-built accommodation and facilities for parents in PJ’s Loft (2002)
- a special operating theatre system that promotes greater use of less invasive keyhole surgery (2003)
- a drop in centre to provide extra support and help for children with long term conditions and their families (2006)
- state of the art brain surgery equipment for helping children with cancer or neurological problems (2007).
Graeme Millar CBE our Chairman said: “No one would have imagined 15 years ago that the Friends Foundation would have been able to achieve so much to help sick children and their families.
“This is an important milestone for us but the real credit goes to you,the many thousands of people who have supported our fundraising campaigns. You have baked cakes, run marathons, abseiled, washed cars, climbed mountains, sung carols - just about any kind of challenge or event imaginable. Many people have also left us legacies which are helping children today and in the future. Every donation matters, whether it be 10p or £10,000. We have put them all to good use and we plan to continue doing so for many years to come. Thank you for helping us to make Sick Kids better! “
The Sick Kids Friends Foundation grew out of the Association of Friends of the Royal Hospital for Sick Children following the success of the appeal to build the new wing at the hospital.
Our purpose is to help the 100,000 children who use the hospital every year by providing the extras that the NHS cannot afford. That includes:
- providing extra comforts to sick children in hospital;
- developing extra child and family friendly facilities;
- purchasing extra state of the art equipment at the hospital;
- providing extra support to sick children being cared for in the community;
- providing funding for extra specialist research and training.
In practical terms that means that we help young people like Sarah.
Sarah is 17 and has been visiting the hospital since she was 15 months. She has Cerebral Palsy. She and her family have benefited from many of the Sick Kids Friends Foundation provisions…welcome gifts, playrooms, EEG, Rompa equipment, Baclofen pumps, bedside mattresses for parents, Parent Accommodation, the Sick Kids Friends Hospital shop. Tgeer are so many others like Sarah who have benefited from our help but she speaks for them all when she said, Sometimes it‘s the smaller things that make a big difference. I don’t really like hospitals very much. I don’t like the way they smell but the Sick Kids Friends Foundation does things that make you feel normal, things that make you feel like you are not in hospital…that really makes a big difference and on behalf of all the patients, I would like to thank everyone who supports the work of the Foundation. You really are doing a great job!’
One year old and growing fast!
On Saturday 22nd May, the Drop In Centre celebrated its first birthday in great style with many past visitors returning to join our staff and volunteers in cutting and eating a wonderful cake.
