Help us move our Disabled Children

We urgently require the funds needed to clear our rent arrears, that occurred when our children were in hospital. Once we are able to do this we can move house immediately to a property more suitable for our children and their medical needs. The new property is larger, suitable for wheelchairs, surrounded by our family for support, and a 2 minute walk from a Primary school, Doctors surgery and a Chemist. This would be ideal as we do not drive and our children have many appointments and regular medications. Where we currently live in a small 2 bedroom house we have to rely on others to drive us to these facilities.

It all started last year when our son was born 15 weeks early. He spent 4 months in hospital, missed his first Christmas with us, and he finally came home on oxygen in January this year. He’s been developing well but is displaying concerns.

At the same time our son was in hospital, our daughter began having seizures and was sent to a different hospital for a week. After EEGs and MRIs they concluded she has epilepsy and is now medicated for this. The medication does not stop the seizures, only controls them to an extent. She is currently home educated as a result of being incontinent with her seizures and she also has hyper mobility syndrome and restricted mobility, as a result she cannot walk the 30 minute walk to the nearest school. We have tried to gain help with transport there and have failed.

Our main concern is that we are 22 weeks pregnant with a son, the last to complete our family, who has Down’s syndrome and a complete AVSD. He will be requiring open heart surgery to correct the large hole and create a new valve when he is 3 months old. There is every chance when he is born he will also be home on oxygen tanks, as his condition is already affecting his lungs, and will also require a feeding tube and daily visits from community nurses. His medical problems do not phase us as we have been through everything with our premature son. But we are concerned we will not be able to move to this suitable property in time.

Our financial problems arose when my husband was made rendunant the week before our son was born, and I lost my business when everything happened. After 4 months of spending an extra £400 on transport that took us 5 hours a day to reach the hospital, we fell into rent arrears. We have now secured work but we are unable to pay more than £10 a week towards the £1000 arrears. Unfortunately this will not suffice with our landlord. We have to pay the full amount in order to move to the new house. We have been assured that once this is paid, we can move as soon as possible, meaning we can spend our first Christmas with our premature son, settled in a new home, in the village where my family have lived for 800 years.

We’re not expecting miracles, and we certainly never ask for handouts, but we need help for our children. We do not rely on any form of benefits, and yet we struggle as a family, just because we are a family. I have tried in vain for the last week to secure the funds we need, but to no avail. We currently have appointments at four separate hospitals 30 miles apart, so I am unable to increase my working hours whilst my husband works 12 hour night shifts.

Any help at all will be very much appreciated by us. We find it unfair how families in our position are unable to secure financial help for their circumstances, so we are campaigning for there to be financial support for parents with sick or premature babies and children in hospitals.