Teenage Cancer Trust £1.3million appeal for new unit launched

27/01/09

Teenage Cancer Trust, is today calling on the Bournemouth community to put its weight behind an appeal to build a new state-of-the-art teenage cancer unit in the region.

Teenage Cancer Trust’s planned unit at Southampton General Hospital will care for young people with cancer from across the South of England. The unit will cost £1.3million and will be the first of its kind in the area.

Six teenagers are diagnosed with cancer every day, that’s over 2,000 each year. There’s never a good time to get cancer, but for a teenager the timing seems particularly cruel. Young people get some of the rarest and most aggressive forms of cancer, and the emotional upheaval of adolescence can make a cancer diagnosis even harder to deal with.

At an exclusive event held tonight at The Print Room’s Ink Bar, Bournemouth, influential members of the community will pledge their support to Teenage Cancer Trust’s South of England Appeal. Attending and showing their support will be well-known TV presenter and reporter, Sally Taylor, along with the High Sheriff of Dorset Mr J. R. Raymond Esq, and Deputy Lieutenant, Mrs Patricia Hymers DL.

There will also be a performance from local singer, Alice Watts, 25, who herself went through cancer at age 21. Alice said: “It can be an incredibly isolating and frightening experience having cancer, only made worse by being put on a ward with no-one your own age, either lots of old people or young children. I wasn’t lucky enough to be treated on a Teenage Cancer Trust unit, but the support they give and the opportunity to meet other people your own age going through the same thing, can’t be underestimated. Had there been a Teenage Cancer Trust unit in Southampton, I would have been able to stay at home during treatment, but I was sent to a hospital in London away from my family and friends which was really tough.”

Helen Haynes, Regional Appeals Manager for the South of England said: “We need to raise £1.3 million to build this specialist facility for the young people in the region. Teenage Cancer Trust really needs everyone’s help to reach this figure. All donations are hugely appreciated, however large or small! Our goal for the Dorset area is to raise £100,000 which is enough to fit out a patient bedroom, complete with all a teenager would want when receiving cancer treatment in hospital. Teenage Cancer Trust units aren’t like ordinary wards – everything about them has been designed to give teenagers the very best chance of a positive outcome. We want every young person in the South of England to have that chance.”

Over the next few years, a number of Teenage Cancer Trust facilities will be built at Southampton General hospital as plans for the new Oncology Centre are finalised. Teenage Cancer Trust’s plans for the area include:

*Provision of a two-bed facility for young people in the oncology ward until the new Teenage Cancer Trust unit is built. *Development of two bone-marrow transplant beds for teenagers and young adults within a new haematology unit which is being jointly supported by the Southampton Hospital Charity, so that teenage patients receive appropriate care and facilities. *A permanent Teenage Cancer Trust unit within the hospital’s new Oncology Centre where building work is due to start in 2010. This facility will give patients a home-from-home and will feature all of the usual facilities seen in other Teenage Cancer Trust units including en-suites, areas for socialising, computer and gaming facilities, satellite TV and a kitchen to prepare food.

Donations can be sent to: Teenage Cancer Trust South of England appeal, PO Box 702, East Grinstead, RH19 3WX