NI health: Parents of sick children call for help with costs

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'Money doesn't come into when you have a sick child, but you still need money to survive.' David and Sara Watson are backing calls for a fund to be set up to help parents with a child in hospital.

David and Sara Watson with their late son Adam, who died in August 2022 after almost three years of illnessFinancial support for families with a child in hospital would help them cope with cost such as transport and food, two parents have said.

"You feel like you owe it to try and go back to work to show that you are not in this to try and rip people off. She said he asked her: "Mummy, do we have money to do both? Do we have money to do both because you and daddy cannot work at the minute because I'm sick?"To hear your son, whilst he is lying there fighting for his life, worrying about his mummy and daddy being able to pay the bills and heating the house."Prof Victoria Simms, an academic from Ulster University who carried out a study on the issue, said she found the data "quite shocking".

Instead, she said, the research found families were "going to their own parents to ask for income support because they do not want to necessarily access the welfare system". Its co-chairwoman Alison McNulty said that money would help reduce the anxiety families have to bear because of the physical, mental, and practical impact of having a child in hospital.

 

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NI health: Parents of sick children call for help with costsThere is a call to help families as bills can mount when their child needs long-term hospital care.
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