Stories from around our Trust

Debunking sperm donation misconceptions – Fertility with Dr Kirkman-Brown.
We spoke with Dr Jackson Kirkman-Brown, the Scientific Lead of Fertility at our Women’s Hospital who shared important insights on why sperm donation is generally misconceived as an act of ‘money-making’ when in truth, spermatozoa donation is a generous act to support families and single people who are unable to have families of their own without clinical intervention.

DESTINY trial to investigate how to improve protection for children during open heart surgery
Starting this month, our Paediatric Intensive Care Research team will be recruiting for a new British Heart Foundation funded £570,000 clinical study, led by Cardiac Surgery at our Children’s Hospital with Birmingham Clinical Trials Unit

Sod-cutting ceremony marks the beginning of £4.6m Mental Health Clinic renovation works
Patients and colleagues have come together to mark the start of work on a £4.6 million expansion of the Trust’s Parkview Mental Health Clinic in Birmingham

Virtual Reality to comfort and reduce anxiety during medical procedures for young people and children
This week, we share how our clinicians have been trialing the use of virtual reality (VR)’ with young people and children to reduce anxiety during minor medical procedures. Brave year old Jack in the tiger VR headset, kindly agreed to test the experience to see if this would make those injections a little bit less scary whilst visiting us at our Children’s Hospital.

Cervical Cancer Awareness Month – Empowering women to continue to attend their appointments
For Cervical Cancer Awareness Month, we spoke with our Clinical Lead for our Colposcopy and Vulval services, consultant and gynaecologist, Jennifer Byrom who shares her thoughts on the importance of attending your appointments and valuing your cervical health.

Our Chaplaincy team are lifting and soothing spirits across BWC
At BWC we are proud to have a Chaplaincy team who are available to provide religious, spiritual and pastoral care and support 24-hours a day for people of all faiths and beliefs.

Keeping mothers and babies together: Reducing admissions into the Neonatal Intensive Care unit (NICU) at our Women’s Hospital
This week we spoke with Fiona Terry, our Neonatal Intensive Care unit Governance Lead and Dudu Nyathi, our Fetal Monitoring and Surveillance Midwife, representing the Avoiding Term Admissions into Neonatal Units (ATAIN) project team at our Women’s Hospital.

Patients urged to still attend booked appointments
Patients and families are being urged to continue attending planned appointments at Birmingham Women’s and Children’s hospitals this winter.

A Christmas Day in the Life of Helen Hancox, Staff Nurse, Emergency Department
Helen has worked at our Children’s Hospital for three years and it will be her second Christmas Day on shift this year. She’ll join hundreds of our colleagues working right across our Trust by the sides of our patients and families. Helen explains what it’s like on the ‘big day’.

Extra special Christmas for Oliver after receiving the most precious gift from dad
The festive period is always a special time but for four-year-old, Oliver Keitley, this Christmas will be even more magical after he received the most precious present from his dad earlier this year – the Gift of Life through organ donation.