Teen asks for help sending NHS thank-yous
AN autistic teenager is asking for the names and hospital addresses of NHS workers so he can send them a thank-you card.
Patrick Joyce, 16, from Glasgow, wants to thank nurses and doctors for their efforts to help Covid-19 patients, and his mother said writing the cards will ease his anxiety about the pandemic.
Indra Joyce is Patrick’s full-time carer after his father died in 2014, when he was 10.
Ms Joyce said: “He wants to write to as many people as he can.
“He just wants to help them not be as sad, and to know that he supports them and appreciates what they are doing because too many people are dying, and he’s glad they at least have the doctors and nurses caring about them.
“The cost of a stamp is peanuts compared to the benefits it will bring both to my son and to the letters’ recipients.”
After a traumatic birth, Patrick was diagnosed with various cognitive disabilities, including global developmental delay (GDD) and autism.
“Patrick is 17, but due to GDD he is more like a seven to eight-year-old,” Ms Joyce said.
“But throughout all his struggles and difficulties, he has always been sweetnatured, and he gets upset when people are sad and wants to hug them to make it better.
Ms Joyce said Patrick, also known as Paddy, “wanted to write to everyone” and asked her to post to her Twitter account, @Indra68, to request NHS workers’ names and hospital addresses.
A number of NHS workers replied publicly to Ms Joyce’s post, with one nurse saying “it would make our day” for her hospital’s ICU staff to receive a card.
Ms Joyce said Patrick, a passionate Everton Football Club fan, will write a few each day so he does not tire.