HEALTH HERO AWARDS Doctor so caring she sacrificed having her own children to look after other people’s
THE Daily Mail’s Health Hero Awards honour the unsung champions of the NHS, those who go the extra mile with no thought of thanks or reward. And we need YOU to help identify them. Five finalists will receive their awards from The Prime Minister at 10 Down
SABAH AMIN woke up on her 12th birthday alone in a bleak hospital isolation room. ‘A nurse came in and wished me happy birthday but I just wanted to cry and turned to face the wall. ‘I felt so lonely. I thought of my family and friends at home while I was imprisoned in hospital,’ she says. It was one of Sabah’s lowest points. In and out of hospital since having kidney cancer diagnosed when she was a year old, she had survived surgery to remove part of her lung when she was two and a half, and endured two years of chemotherapy followed by a kidney transplant at the age of six.
After all she’d been through, she was looking forward to her 12th birthday celebrations, which she had been painstakingly planning for months, determined to fight back and have a normal life.
Yet now she was back in hospital after her weakened immune system led to an emergency admission for pneumonia.
But if all seemed hopeless, Sabah had reckoned without consultant paediatric nephrologist Dr Larissa Kerecuk — a human dynamo known to her patients and their families as ‘Wonder Woman’.
Seeing Sabah’s dismay, Larissa organised a surprise party: despite her punishing schedule as a kidney specialist at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, she baked a cake, raced out in her break to buy gifts and decorations, blew up balloons and invited a large gathering of Sabah’s family and friends.
That evening Larissa led the wide- eyed girl into the ward’s reception area — where a sea of familiar faces awaited her.
Sabah’s mother Naheeda recalls: ‘There wasn’t a dry eye in the room. I burst into tears and realised the nurses were all weeping. I hugged Larissa and she had tears in her eyes, too. I said, “How can I ever thank you for this?”’
Six years on, Sabah herself has a struggle not to cry at the memory.
‘There were bowls of pick’n’mix, birthday banners hanging from the ceiling and a cake and my family and friends — and standing in the middle was this amazing doctor who had brought my party to me.
‘At that moment I worshipped her — and I have never stopped. And that day something just clicked in my head.’
It was a turning point, says Naheeda. ‘Sabah had been so low it was as if all hope had gone. But at the end of the party she stood up and made a speech and I saw the old, fighting Sabah was back.’
Sabah first met Larissa when she needed a kidney transplant. The operation was scheduled for 6pm but, at the last minute, the theatre was one doctor short so the operation was going to be cancelled.
Naheeda, 39, from Oldbury, West Midlands, recalls: ‘Larissa had just arrived at Birmingham Children’s that week as a junior doctor. She had her coat and hat on ready to leave at the end of her last shift that week, and looked exhausted.
‘She was almost out of the door when she heard the chief surgeon say he was a doctor down. She immediately volunteered to assist.
‘I only discovered later that she had a date who had driven up to Birmingham and spent three hours lost before he was forced to eat in a restaurant alone.
‘When my daughter was wheeled out of theatre, Larissa squeezed my arm and said, “She’s not just Sabah any more. She’s my Sabah.” Since then, that is what she has always called her.’
Larissa laughs at the memory of her disastrous date. ‘That was my partner Bill. He realised he had been stood up — but he’s still with me all these years later and he knows all too well that my young patients come before anyone else!
‘Instead of relaxing, he spends his weekends fundraising with me — rattling cans or running fundraising dinners and events.
‘Every year we organise a pumpkin run, growing pumpkins in our greenhouse and allotment, and organising a pumpkin club with other allotment owners so 30 or more pumpkins are delivered to hospital for the children to carve while waiting for dialysis.’
And at the end of each 12-hour day, Larissa arrives home to spend further hours at her computer applying for charity funding and organising fundraising events.
Her work doesn’t stop there, either. Realising that many families who have children with rare and undiagnosed conditions were struggling in isolation, Larissa launched the Superstar Club as a support group.
Twenty families turned up for the first meeting two years ago — and this summer 400 gathered for Larissa’s latest event.
She has organised a Christmas party this year, and says with a twinkle in her eye: ‘I’ve managed to find real reindeer for the children. They’ll love it!’
It’s the little acts of compassion that make Larissa so special, say the Amin family. She has sent Sabah a card or present every birthday, as well as Christmas and New Year cards. ‘If I sit an exam, I’ll get a text from her telling me she’s thinking of me,’ says Sabah, who is now studying health and social care. Inspired by Larissa, she hopes to work in a hospital helping other young people.
Sabah says Larissa buys toys and activity books for young patients — and looks out for their parents, too: ‘When it’s Mum’s wedding anniversary, Larissa always sends her a card and a gift.’ NAHEEDA,
a mother of six, says: ‘I try to be brave and not cry in front of my children but Larissa’ s kindness means so much.
‘When I first met her, I couldn’t speak English well and I was struggling to cope with four-weekold twins. Larissa would visit us to make me a cup of tea, and offer to do my shopping when I couldn’t leave Sabah’s side.
‘Four years ago a blood vessel ruptured in Sabah’s transplanted kidney. She lost a lot of blood and the kidney had to be removed.
‘My mother had just died and I was terrified as well as griefstricken. I was sitting alone when Larissa happened to see me — she put her arms around me, then went to the canteen and bought me a drink and a sandwich, realising I hadn’t eaten for hours.’
Sabah, who lives at home, now needs dialysis three times a week — ‘Larissa gave me confidence to operate a dialysis machine at home for Sabah,’ says her mother. ‘I can ring Larissa night or day and I know she’ll be there for us.’
Natasha Hawley’s family is
another of the many to have benefited from Larissa’s all-encompassing care and devotion.
Her son Aidan was born prematurely 15 years ago. He has cerebral palsy and epilepsy, as well as a genetic condition not yet identified.
‘Larissa has saved Aidan’s life with her skill as a doctor, but she has given me my life back too,’ says Natasha, 39, from Medway, Kent. ‘Aidan needed 22 operations in his early years. I nearly had a breakdown through stress, and I could only sleep for two hours at a time because his airway continually needed checking.
‘Larissa was a junior doctor but she was the one doctor who listened to me. She seemed to know instinctively if I was having a bad day, and was there with a hug or a cup of tea or a cake. And she was so loving towards Aidan, unlike some other doctors who were brisk and businesslike.’
Her other son Rhys, 11, is autistic and has ADHD. ‘When Rhys needed a blood test recently, she sat with him in the waiting room, even though she’s not his doctor, so he didn’t panic.
‘We came to see her in Birmingham last month and expected to have a quick coffee together but Larissa whisked us to Marco Pierre White’s restaurant and insisted on paying the entire bill.
‘Her kindness leaves me lost for words. the children adore her, the parents rely on her and when she walks into the room and smiles, the whole place lights up.’
there is no doubting Larissa’s extraordinary empathy for patients and their families. And behind it lies a huge personal sacrifice. For she and Bill have chosen to remain childless so Larissa can concentrate on the young patients in her care.
She says: ‘I decided early in my career that I couldn’t have children and be the sort of totally dedicated doctor I am. So I decided to concentrate on being a doctor.
‘My mum and grandmother say that
my patients are like my children, though! I feel so proud of them when they utter their first words or take their first steps, start school or pass their driving tests and get their first boyfriends and girlfriends.’
Larissa wanted to be a doctor for as long as she can remember — ‘I used to immunise my dolls’ — but she had to learn english from scratch at the age of 13 when her parents moved to the UK from Brazil. She trained at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Medical School in London, qualifying as best student in 1998.
As a young doctor, seeing a mother care for a dying toddler was a formative experience. ‘I saw senior doctors being arrogant and assuming they knew best, but this mother had read everything she could about her daughter’s condition,’ Larissa recalls. ‘I realised then that parents really can know best. I vowed to always listen and to learn.’
During a stint at Great Ormond Street on a cancer ward, the death of a two-year-old boy affected her particularly deeply and ‘the loss was so hard that I decided to leave oncology’.
She became a renal specialist and joined Birmingham children’s Hospital in 2005, becoming a consultant four years later.
noticing how many patients lost kidneys after moving from child to adult care, Larissa developed transition programmes across the northeast to educate and support teenage kidney patients as they moved into adult services. On top of her normal nHS workload, she continues to run transition clinics at Birmingham.
Larissa, now rare disease lead at Birmingham children’s Hospital, will soon head the UK’s first rare disease centre for children, based at the hospital and due to open in January. children from around the country will be treated there.
As Larissa explains, the number of children affected is rising: ‘These rare genetic diseases used to be a forgotten area of medicine and even now just 5 per cent of patients receive any treatment. About 75 per cent of rare diseases affect children, and 30 per cent die before their fifth birthday.’
She is determined to improve genetic diagnosis as the first step towards new treatments, and oversees the 100,000 Genomes Project at Birmingham — a UK-wide programme to sequence 100,000 genomes from 70,000 patients with a rare disease or cancer, and their families. And she is also researching the impact a child with a rare disease has on siblings.
But all this isn’t the only reason she is known as wonder woman. That came about because she has abseiled 180 ft down a ten-storey building — twice — to raise money for the new centre.
‘ I’m terrified of heights, then I remembered how brave my young patients are and that gave me the courage to continue,’ she says. ‘ They are the ones who inspire me.’