New Nurse For Terminally Ill Kids

29 June 2011, 05:00

A second nurse will provide care at home for terminally ill children in part of the Thames Valley. The nurse will be paid for by the Alexander Devine Children's Hospice Service, set up in memory of Alexander Devine, who died aged 8 in 2005 from a brain tumor.

Fiona and John Devine set up the charity in memory of Alexander, with the goal of setting up a hospice for children in Berkshire. Fiona told Heart what inspires her "Quite simply Alexander, an inspirational little boy. We're very ordinary people, just a very ordinary family, who happened to be blessed with an extraordinary little boy. So pure and simply, him."

Jules Wester is the second nurse funded by the Alexander Devine Children's Hospice Service. She'll be going into family homes in West Berkshire, providing respite and palliative care. A nurse is already helping over 30 families in East Berkshire.

Michael Parkinson is a founding patron of the charity. He told us how vital their work is. "The thing that every parents dreads is that one day, your child my die before you. And so to have gone through that and to have suffered as they did without any kind of care at all is a clear indication that anything to reduce that pain and agony, is a good thing."

£1 million pounds has already been raised for the hospice, to be built in the future, for children in Berkshire.