Thank you for saving our lives

Terror of moment I feared I had lost Teddy to sepsis

Happy 70th Birthday to our beloved NHS. On July 5 1948, Labour Health Secretary Nye Bevan opened the universal service – free for all when they need it – at Park Hospital in Manchester.

It has become part of our national story, something which makes people across these islands enormously proud.

In its first 12 months the NHS budget was £500million. We now spend £145billion. It employs 1.5 million people, making it the sixth biggest employer on the planet.

But the NHS goes way beyond numbers. The NHS has given me everything – a career, a passion plus three happy and healthy sons.

But for my youngest son, Teddy, it quite literally saved his life.

When he was just eight weeks old he got sepsis caused by meningitis. He was refusing to feed and screaming.

I took him to the out-of-hours GP who told us not to be too concerned, but we barely slept all night. We saw our GP who sent us straight to A&E.

Teddy was rushed to resuscitation as the hospital called for an emergency pediatric team.

It was the most terrifying moment of my life – my blood ran cold.

For two weeks I never left the hospital, but every day the nurses on the pediatric ward were there.

I owe them so much.

Teddy is three now and is bouncing around laughing and playing like the healthy and happy boy he is.

As a healthcare assistant, I know how hard the NHS can be – but it has given all of us so much and I won’t ever be able to thank it enough.

■ Lucy Sealey, 30, Yeovil, Somerset

It is a collection of f life-changing stories of nurses and doctors keeping families healthy.

So, to mark the e day, we asked Mirror readers to share the eir stories of what the NHS means to them – an d how it has transformed

their lives.