Health News - Family members 'Living' at UCLH

Published: 19 August, 2010
by JOSH LOEB

EVERY year hundreds of people from across the country pack their bags and head to Euston Road, where they live inside a monolithic building for many months, unable to say exactly when they will be returning home.

The building is University College London Hospital (UCLH) but these people are not ill; they are the parents and carers of inpatients, and at any one time there could be as many as 50 of them bedding down for the night in the wards and private rooms.

While commuting to the hospital is easy for Londoners, people from outside the capital often choose to make use of the overnight accommodation UCLH provides in order to be close to their children while they are undergoing treatment.

There are downsides to this – the feeling of displacement and the financial burden of living in an expensive city, for example. 

But many parents say it is worth it for the high standard of care their children receive. In some cases it may be the only place where treatment is available.

Wendy Townhill has been living in UCLH since early April. Her daughter is being treated for leukaemia and she has taken time off from her job as a midwife in Essex, where her husband has remained with their other daughter. 

“It’s hard, being split up from your family,” she said. “Once you’ve had the diagnosis, it’s like the rug’s been pulled from under your feet and you’ve been thrown into a world that’s alien.”

However, Ms Townhill says there is a lot of camaraderie among hospital residents. “You’ve been thrown together,” she said. “Sometimes you will have had similar diagnoses and are in the same boat, so you can support each other. People meet up in the kitchen and swap stories.”

UCLH, which opened in 2005, offers the widest range of adolescent health services of any treatment centre in the country. Its specialist areas include adolescent rheumatology, cancer treatment for teenagers and weight management services.

“Displaced” individuals from far-flung counties quickly become “part of the furniture” in the hospital, according to John Cavanagh, who has been living in UCLH since mid-June. His teenage son had several operations after complications following the removal of his pituitary gland – an intervention that saved his life after he was diagnosed with a brain tumour.

During his time in the hospital, Mr Cavanagh has made friends with fellow live-in parents as well as staff.

“There are private rooms and showers and there is somewhere to make tea,” he said. 

“The only thing we don’t have is a laundry room – we have to take our clothes to a laundrette. 

“You’ve also got to eat out a lot as there is nowhere to cook, which can be expensive if you don’t know where the good value places are.”

In a few weeks’ time, children and young people diagnosed with cancer will be able to relocate with their families from the hospital to Paul’s House, a cosy new “home from home” a short walk from UCLH. 

The house, which has been in the pipeline for almost a decade and has 15 rooms, has been designed to help “maintain a sense of normality” among youngsters who are inpatients and the family members who are staying with them.

Created with funding from cancer charity CLIC Sargent, it promises to provide families with “a place to spend quiet periods together, away from the confines of the busy hospital ward”. 

But for others, the hospital will remain their home. It may be a strange place to live, but the number of parents who choose to move in testifies to the fact that it is a place with no shortage of love.