Health News – Charlie makes history! Young patient’s time capsule

Published: 1 April 2010
by TOM FOOT

A TIME capsule containing the story of a child’s battle with leukaemia has been buried beneath a house that will help families of young cancer patients treated at University College London Hospital (UCLH).

Charlie Yeats, a 10-year-old boy who was saved by UCLH experts, was joined by BBC Formula 1 pundit Eddie Jordan and hospital chief executive Sir Robert Naylor at the ceremony.

The £4.6million Paul’s House, named after Paul Gorman, a patient in the 1980s who died of leukaemia at the age of 14, will offer free accommodation to the parents of sick children.

The house, in Huntley Street, Bloomsbury, will be run by the children’s cancer charity CLIC Sargent. It will open later this year alongside UCLH’s £100m cancer treatment centre.

Senior cancer nurse Alison Finch said: “Paul’s House will help keep life as normal as possible during treatment and help relieve some of the emotional and financial strain inherent in cancer care.”