Ellie was born with a condition known as Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH) and was given a 25 per cent chance of survival. The condition meant that Ellie had a hole in her diaphragm, allowing her stomach, liver and bowel to grow in her chest cavity. Ellie had life-saving surgery when she was just days old and then spent five-days on life-support machines.

Ellie’s mum Orla says she “can’t wait” to take her daughter home in time for Mother’s Day.

Click here to watch the full story on Ellie on the Seven News website.

Aston Crow in isolation at the RCH. Photo courtesy of the Herald Sun.

Aston Crow is the brave little boy who featured on the front page of the Herald Sun on Good Friday.

Last week the two-year-old underwent a bone marrow transplant in the hope that it will cure the rare form of leukaemia, called myelodysplastic syndrome, that he was diagnosed with last August.

Aston will now be in isolation at The Royal Children’s Hospital for weeks to shield him from infection as he recovers from the transplant.

Click here to read the full story on the Herald Sun website.

Belinda Caldwell (with daughter Lucinda, centre of photo) welcomes funding for the RCH Eating Disorders Program. Photo courtesy of the Age.

Young people with eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa have every chance of reaching a cure thanks to proven, intensive treatment, according to staff at The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH).

This week, the State Government announced $3 million additional funding for the RCH Eating Disorders Program – a commitment welcomed by RCH staff and families.

Director of the RCH Centre for Adolescent Health, Professor Susan Sawyer, says the funding is a coup for Victorians, with adolescent services often overlooked in funding decisions despite the high prevalence of eating disorders in this age group.

“I’ve been working with young people with eating disorders for the past 17 years. Given the benefits of investing in curative treatments for anorexia nervosa in adolescence, we’re absolutely delighted with these new funds,” Professor Sawyer said.

The Victorian Government has allocated the funding over three years to enable the RCH to increase the award-winning intensive support it provides young people with eating disorders and their families.

“Four years ago, funding from the Baker Foundation meant that the RCH Eating Disorder Program was able to implement world’s best practice for eating disorders, known as family based treatment (FBT) or the Maudsley treatment. Since then, we have seen a dramatic improvement in our clinical results,” Professor Sawyer said.

The revolutionary treatment is guided by a team of adolescent and mental health clinicians whose focus is empowering parents to form a key part of the healing process. Parents are actively engaged in their child’s refeeding at home by supervising every meal, even if this takes hours of support and encouragement.

Professor Sawyer says FBT has contributed to a 75 per cent drop in readmission rates at the RCH, with 97 per cent of those who complete the program recovering fully and many teenagers weight restored within six months.

“Previously, treatment failure was the norm. After many years of unsuccessful treatment, we commonly had to ‘graduate’ our older adolescents to adult services as they failed to recover. The introduction of FBT means that we now aim for cure in adolescence,” she said.

Seventeen-year-old Lucinda Caldwell has been undergoing FBT for anorexia nervosa with the RCH Eating Disorder Program for 13 months. Her mother Belinda Caldwell was thrilled to hear of the government’s funding allocation and says it provides hope to other families who were not able to access the program.

“We feel blessed for having the journey we’ve had with our daughter’s eating disorder thanks to The Royal Children’s Hospital program. The approach has made it far simpler for us by diagnosing Lucinda early, offering a clear treatment pathway and taking so much of the stress away from us as a family,” Mrs Caldwell said.

“Lucinda is not out of the woods yet, but she’s medically stable and hasn’t been readmitted since she commenced the program in April last year. Every day we thank our lucky stars,” she said.

Professor Sawyer says despite the success of the RCH Eating Disorders Program, which won a Victorian Public Healthcare Award in 2011, there remain families who find the journey more difficult than others.

“These new funds will enable us to provide more intensive support for those young people who continue to struggle with anorexia nervosa despite FBT. For families struggling with a child with this disorder, these funds will be a lifeline,” she said.

Read more: Empowering families to tackle anorexia together

Alisa Camplin and her husband Oliver Camplin-Warner present the Finnan's Gift Grant to the RCH Rosella Ward nursing team.

Olympic gold medallist Alisa Camplin and her husband Oliver Camplin-Warner presented the inaugural Finnan’s Gift Grant to the Intensive Care (Rosella Ward) nursing team at The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) today in memory of their son Finnan.

The grant of $20,000 has been raised through exceptional community generosity following the establishment of Finnan’s Gift in 2011. Finnan Maximus Camplin-Warner was diagnosed in-utero with congenital heart disease (CHD) and passed away at just 10-days-old. The fundraising project was set up by Alisa and Oliver to honour their son and to raise awareness for CHD, which is the leading cause of death in young children in Australia.

The inaugural Finnan’s Gift Grant will specifically fund the Intensive Care (Rosella Ward) nurses to take advantage of a number of education, professional development and training opportunities that will support their work in delivering the best treatments and care at the RCH. The nurses will attend various important industry conferences, enabling them to present their research and enhance their leadership skills and knowledge.

In 2011, Finnan’s Gift’s first fundraising goal of $300,000 was reached in just three months following an outpouring of public support for the Camplin-Warners.  The funds bought a state-of-the-art echocardiology scanning machine for the RCH cardiology department, which has been up and running at the hospital since October 2011.

Following this success, Alisa and Oliver established an ongoing grant, to be presented annually to further honour Finnan’s memory while supporting the RCH specialists, surgeons, nurses and doctors who cared for him.

“Finnan’s Gift has become a very significant part of Oliver’s and my life now.  After donating the echocardiology machine in 2011 we simply couldn’t walk away because there is just so much more to do.  The Finnan’s Gift Grants will be a way for us to continue giving, to keep working within our community for a better world and of course remember our gorgeous son.  We know it won’t be easy, but nothing worth doing ever is,” Alisa said.

RCH Intensive Care Nurse Unit Manager, Adrian Hutchinson says the grant will make a significant contribution to supporting Intensive Care nurses at the RCH.

“Finnan’s Gift Grant will allow our Intensive Care Nurses to take advantage of a number of opportunities that will support their work in delivering the very best treatments to our sickest children,” he said. 

Alisa and Oliver also announced today that the intended recipient of the 2013 Finnan’s Gift Grant is the team of perfusionists at the RCH. The perfusionist team operate the sophisticated life-support machines that manage the work of the heart and lungs whilst surgeons operate. Perfusionists are highly experienced medical scientists with specialised training in the techniques of artificial blood circulation, and were instrumental in Finnan’s six open heart surgeries.

For more information please refer to www.finnansgift.com.au or www.rchfoundation.org.au

RCH patients, families and staff farewell the community on Seven's live telecast of the Good Friday Appeal.

The Royal Children’s Hospital would like to thank the entire community – our supporters, patients, families, staff, volunteers and friends – for your generous support of the 2012 Good Friday Appeal.

This year’s Good Friday Appeal raised $15,820,640.78 for The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH).

As fundraising activities took place across Australia, it was also a special day for those who were at the hospital.

Media, celebrity guests and other well-known personalities came to the hospital to lend their support to the appeal and meet patients, families and staff.

Channel 7 broadcast its evening news live from the hospital on the eve of the Good Friday Appeal. On Good Friday, patients woke up with Channel 7’s Sunrise and from 9.00am until 5.00pm, Nick McCallum and Jennifer Kyte interviewed patients and their families about their time at RCH to support the fundraising efforts of the appeal.

Special guests, including the Easter Bunny, Channel 7 celebrities, Ronald McDonald and furry creatures visited patients in their bedrooms and on wards.

AFL players from North Melbourne, Richmond and Hawthorn football clubs and the netball players from the Melbourne Vixens visited the hospital to spend time with children and their families too.

Staff volunteered their time to help out on the day by touring guests through the wards and giving out gifts and giveaways generously donated for the children in hospital on the day.

In the weeks leading up to the Good Friday Appeal, the Herald Sun and Channel 7 have also been on site interviewing and filming patients and families to promote the work of our hospital and support the appeal.

Thank you and congratulations to everyone involved.

Read and view the stories of this year’s appeal on the News Room pages of the RCH website, the Herald Sun website and the Seven News website.

For more updates click here to view the Good Friday Appeal website.

Cassandra with mum Rachel at the RCH. Photo courtesy of the Herald Sun.

After battling a mysterious bout of pancreatitis, Cassandra Adams has been reunited with identical twin sister Eleanor to celebrate their third birthday today.

Cassandra left The Royal Children’s Hospital yesterday, flying back to Darwin, where dad Tim said there would be plenty of cake and Easter eggs to mark the occasion.

A fortnight ago, the toddler fell seriously ill, vomiting, grey-faced and lapsing and in and out of consciousness, and had exploratory abdominal surgery at the Royal Darwin Hospital.

A scan later revealed her pancreas, which secretes enzymes to digest food, was the problem and she was flown to Melbourne for treatment.

Words by Marianne Betts.

Click here to read the full story on the Herald Sun website.

Bilal Hassan after open heart surgery at the RCH. Photo courtesy of the Herald Sun.

A footy injury was a blessing in disguise for Bilal Hassan, saving his life.

A sharp-eyed Thomastown Meadows Primary School staffer examining the 10-year-old’s bruised thumb noticed his fingers were blue.

She suggested he go straight to The Royal Children’s Hospital, where doctors discovered he had a hole in his heart and a malformed chamber.

In a five-hour operation on Bilal a fortnight ago, RCH cardiac surgeon Prof Konstantinov repaired the hole, reshaped his malformed right ventricle and reworked some of the plumbing.

The Lalor lad, now expected to lead a full and happy life, went home yesterday.

Words by Marianne Betts.

Click here to read the full story on the Herald Sun website.

Five-week-old Ellie Doyle with dad Martin at the RCH. Photo courtesy of the Herald Sun.

Five-week-old Ellie Doyle’s tooth and nail fight for life is being won.

Her stomach, intestines and part of her liver had slipped into her chest, through a hole in her diaphragm muscle, squashing her lung and pushing her heart over.

RCH director of neonatal medicine Dr Rod Hunt said surgeons operated when she was a week old, pushing her organs back to where they belonged, and repairing the hole with a Gore-Tex patch.

Words by Marianne Betts.

Click here to read the full story on the Herald Sun website.

RCH patient Makayla Mayer. Photo courtesy of the Herald Sun.

Makayla Mayer is about to get out of bed for the first time in 25 days. It is bittersweet for the slight 10-year-old Colac girl who wears her heart on her sleeve. After dislocating the top two vertebrae in her neck five months ago, Makayla has been lying flat on her back in traction at The Royal Children’s Hospital for almost four weeks.

Attached to her head is a halo, and from that a rope disappears over the end of her bed holding a 4kg weight to keep her spine in alignment. She admits it’s been boring but she’s passed the time watching TV and the clock, high up on the wall.

Today, the thought of being upright for the first time in so long is daunting for Makayla. “She’s scared and excited at the same time,” mum Leanne Mayer says.

Mrs Mayer still marvels at how her daughter sustained such a severe injury. It was so inoccuous, no one actually knows how it happened. “She stood in the kitchen one morning screaming in pain, after having a bath and wrapping a towel around her head,” Mrs Mayer says.

Thinking she had pulled a muscle in her neck, Mrs Mayer took her to a chiropractor, a GP and an acupuncturist. They could find nothing wrong with her. The pain went away after a while, but she held her head on a tilt because she had no movement on the left side. Four months after her injury her family GP sent her for a CT scan, which finally picked up her dislocation.

Makayla went straight to Melbourne on February 27, and straight into traction. RCH clinical orthopedics head Mr Ian Torode says: “The vertebrae are meant to twist to a certain degree, but if you go too far the joints dislocate and get stuck out of position.”

On Tuesday Makayla had improved enough to have a halo vest put on, freeing her from her bed and wheelchair, and allowing her to take her first steps in 37 days. She will go home wearing the vest and will keep in on for two months. Five long months after Makayla did whatever she did to injure herself she will have her life back.

Words by Marianne Betts.

Chelsea's brave smile. Photo courtesy of the Herald Sun.

Chelsea Aquilina is quietly happy as she takes her first shaky steps in three months. Leaning on a bed the five-year-old takes a few sideways steps in one direction and then back again. Her left leg, which is much weaker than her right, is being partly supported by one physiotherapist, and her hips by another.

They may be tiny, shaky steps, but for Chelsea they are momentous strides towards her recovery.

She was not expected to survive when, just before Christmas, she was hit by a ute and suffered severe head injuries.

When she arrived at The Royal Children’s Hospital that night, neurosurgeon Patrick Lo says “she was extremely critical and very close to death”.

Mr Lo adds simply: “She should not be alive, she’s such a star.”

The right side of her brain was bruised and haemorrhaging and she had emergency surgery to relieve the pressure, Mr Lo says. A large clot and a piece of Chelsea’s skull were removed to give her swelling brain more room.

Over the following days Chelsea clung to life by a thread, and doctors warned her distraught family she could have a cardiac arrest at any moment. “If she arrested they weren’t going to resuscitate because there was already too much brain damage,” Mrs Aquilina says. “If they had to resuscitate, it would cause more damage, and it wouldn’t be fair to her.” But the Melton youngster kept rallying.

Mrs Aquilina says altogether her little girl has had eight or nine operations. Mr Lo says: “She’s a fighter, that girl. Her family had a lot to do with it, too. They never gave up.”

Mr Lo says Chelsea will be permanently weak on the left side of her body, but he expects her to start walking again in coming months. “It’s more than likely she’ll start walking bit by bit, but she’ll always have a limp on her left side,” he says. Mentally she may have have memory problems, suffer headaches and epilepsy or seizures, but “we are extremely optimistic about her”.

She is expected to make most of her gains in the first year after the accident, but to keep improving over the next five years.

If her first few months are anything to go by, nothing will hold Chelsea back from a bright future.

Words by Marianne Betts.