The Noah's Ark Appeal

Appeal Questions and Answers

Why is the Noah’s Ark Appeal still fundraising?

What are you raising funds for and how much do you need?

What will be in the final phase (phase two) of the Children’s Hospital for Wales?

How many children will be helped in the completed Children’s Hospital?

Will it only help children from Cardiff?

When will the finished hospital be open?

What has the Noah’s Ark Appeal been doing since phase one opened in 2005?

Why is the Noah’s Ark Appeal still fundraising?

Even through the money to build and run this final phase is now available, bricks alone do not make a world-class children’s hospital. For this to happen, the most modern and up to date equipment is needed to provide the best standard of care and of course we can’t have white, clinical walls – we need to create a child-friendly environment that is full of colour. Children are not just mini adults – they need a special environment in which they feel safe and unafraid.

What are you raising funds for and how much do you need?

We estimate that we will need to raise at least £7m although we expect this to rise in time. The main things that we will be aiming to provide are:

An ‘open’ MRI scanner. This has no sides and a parent can lie by their child during the scan. It will have a screen, colours and music to distract the child and minimise distress. Our hospital will be the first in the UK to have such a scanner and only the second in Europe. This alone will cost £1.5million
We will replace the equipment in the new critical care unit that will combine intensive and high dependency care. This specialist equipment is expensive but it is vital that this crucial unit has the most advanced technology available.

What will be in the final phase (phase two) of the Children’s Hospital for Wales?

The proposed content is as follows:

Children’s operating theatres
A new critical care unit – comprising both intensive and high dependency care
Brand new wards for children needing surgery
Assessment centre
A large outpatients and dental suite
Dedicated diagnostic and assessment centre suite with open paediatric MRI scanner.
Dedicated facilities for teaching and education

How many children will be helped in the completed Children’s Hospital?

In short, 23,000 inpatient admissions and 50,000 outpatient appointments per year.

Currently in phase one of the hospital which treats children with medical conditions and/or cancer, the children admitted as in patient and day cases total nearly 11,000 each year. This figure excludes all of the children who are admitted currently to the old children’s wards.

When the Children’s Hospital for Wales is completed it is expected that 23,000 children will be treated as in-patients and day cases.

Phase two will also bring the majority of children’s outpatient services into the Children’s Hospital for Wales. Each year there are 50,000 children’s outpatient attendees in Cardiff and Vale Trust – excluding dentistry and community services. Of these, currently only 2250 were treated in phase one of the Children’s Hospital for Wales. Nearly one third of all outpatients come from outside of Cardiff and the Vale.

These figures exclude all the children helped in the 402 clinics that are specialists run each year in local hospitals across Wales and home visits made by medical staff.

Will it only help children from Cardiff?

Children requiring specialist care from all of South, Mid and West Wales will be treated at the Children’s Hospital for Wales.

In phase one, from April 2004 to March 2007 30% of inpatient and day cases were children living outside of Cardiff and the Vale.

71% of our cancer outpatients came from outside Cardiff and the Vale.

Our Children’s Hospital in Wales Specialists perform 402 clinics annually across Wales in local hospitals with local paediatricians.

When will the finished hospital be open?

It is planned to begin building in 2009. Completing the Children’s Hospital for Wales is a highly complex matter as children and services in existing buildings have to be moved to alternative accommodation before the demolition of the current outdated surgical wards can begin. Demolition is scheduled to begin in 2010. The building is therefore taking place in stages with work on the north block (the surgical block) planned to start in 2010.

We are therefore only a handful of years away from seeing the completed Children’s Hospital become reality – enough time for the Noah’s Ark Appeal to raise vital funds to provide the best equipment we can afford. We need the support of the people of Wales once again if we are to achieve this.

What has the Noah’s Ark Appeal been doing since phase one opened in 2005?

Apart from sustaining a campaign to complete the Children’s Hospital for Wales, the Noah’s Ark Appeal has been busy.

In 2006 we raised £300,000 towards the building of a teenage cancer trust unit. It is the largest one of its kind in the UK and will enable teenagers to be treated with other teenagers rather than with young children or old people. Often the patients stay for months at a time and it is important for them to be able to live a ‘normal ’life as possible during a time when teenage years are difficult enough. A further £25,000 has since been given for additional equipment.

We have also funded £200,000 worth of state-of-the-art equipment for the paediatric eye department making it one of the best in the UK.

The Noah’s Ark Appeal has provided at a cost of £150,000 free bedside TV and radio for patients at the Children’s Hospital for Wales. We don’t want anyone to go without because of a lack of money and the children that are too ill to get up will be able to be entertained, hopefully helping their recovery. Access to games and the internet is also free of use.

£160,000 has been provided to refurbish a new young persons unit.

We also provide equipment when requested – such as biopsy kits (£5000) and a bladder scanner (£8000) will be taken by a nurse to children’s homes so the children don’t have to make the trip to the hospital from Mid and West Wales. The scanner, specially designed for children, can aid diagnosis and prevent unnecessary treatment or flag up problems that if untreated at an early stage could lead to kidney problems.