Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
COMEDIAN’S GIFT
HOW tickled Ken Dodd would have been to see wide-eyed tot Raees Hassan smiling back at him from these pages today.
Because it was the late comedian’s big heart that helped save the tiny one in this little fella.
Raees would not be here today if it hadn’t been for a charity the Liverpudlian legend set up shortly before he died in 2018.
And it was Sir Ken’s widow, Lady Anne Dodd, who used its funds to pay for a special new machine at the city’s Alder Hey Children’s Hospital that arrived in the nick of time to help save Raees.
She has now revealed that the news helped get her through the dark days she has endured since Sir Ken’s death three years ago.
“That’s given me the greatest pleasure, knowing his work saved a life,” Anne said.
And Raees’ mum Farah told us: “Ken and Anne Dodd gave Raees the chance to live. I feel so grateful.”
Little Raees was born at Oldham Hospital last April, weighing 6lb 10oz. But a serious heart defect meant his two main arteries were the wrong way around and left him struggling to breathe.
“He turned blue,” said Farah, who first realised something was wrong when Raees was six weeks old.
UNBEARABLE
“They found his oxygen levels were 30% when they should be in the high 90s and there were 20 doctors and nurses rushing around him. It was so horrible to watch.”
Raees was diagnosed with transposition of the great arteries (TGA).
Farah said: “One side of his heart was bigger than the other and the valve problem meant clean blood was being sent to his lungs and impure blood to his body. He was being deprived of oxygen.”
Raees was rushed to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Sir Ken’s home city of Liverpool, where it was also found he had Covid-19.
Farah, 24, and her husband Aqeel feared the worst for their son.
“Because of his Covid infection, we couldn’t be near him. He looked so helpless,” said Farah.
“The hospital called the next night and said his condition was deteriorating. It was unbearable.
“Every moment was gutwrenching. Every phone call had my heart racing. Then they said it could be his last night. I remember me and my husband crying.
“They said we could visit. We had to see him in full PPE. He had so many wires attached to him.”
It was then that trainee barrister Farah and customer service adviser Aqeel, 26, were told Raees was being put on the hospital’s new Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) machine.
It takes impure blood from the body, removes carbon dioxide and pumps oxygen-filled blood back in – acting as an external heart and lungs – and it was only thanks to The Ken Dodd Charitable Foundation that the hospital even had the machine.
Anne, 78, had donated £50,000 through the The Alder Hey League of Friends – a charity close to Sir Ken’s heart – weeks before to pay for it. Kindly Anne said: “I understand that no sooner had the machine been received, it was needed urgently and saved the life of a very sick child. I was so thrilled with this news when
BIRTHDAY BOY With mum Farah, dad Aqeel, and brother Ayaan they told me.” Farah said she can’t thank the Dodds enough for helping to save her son’s life.
“I’m so grateful to Anne and her husband Ken,” she said.
“The ECMO is an amazing piece of technology. It gave Raees’s organs the opportunity to rest and that saved his life.”
After being hooked up to the machine, Raees was then strong enough for a complicated six-hour operation to correct his heart malformation – but his parents were warned that his chance of survival that would be 50-50.
Two weeks after the op, Raees was allowed home. And last month, Farah and Aqeel watched as their son celebrated his first birthday alongside his brother Ayaan, four.