Life was turned upside down for this family when they found out that their son Adam was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia in October 2019 when he was just seven. He then died on 3 August, 2022.
image source www.bbc.com
His parents were barely living on one wage from past several months and many other families face and are having analogous situations in Northern Ireland.
Now by seeing the gravity of the matter,The Northern Ireland Children’s Health Coalition has called for a a £ 4 M fund to give families an entitlement of £500 a time.
David and Sara Watson , the parents of Adam said that if this decision would have been made earlier ,the financial support would have made a difference to their lives.
Money: An important factor
As mentioned, they were pay envelope worker, and were floundering to face such inflation of food , transportation , accomodation, parking expenses and their son’s medical expenses.
They believed that money should not be a ” be all, end all” factor but still I plays a giant role in taking care of their sick child.
They said ” You need money to keep that child as comfortable as possible.”
She said he asked her: “Mummy, do we have money to do both? Do we have money to do both because you and daddy cannot work at the minute because I’m sick?
David and Sara Watson since then have worked tirelessly to raise hundreds of thousands of pounds for children’s cancer charities since their son Adam died in 2022.
Starting a charity campaign
The couple, who established the B Positive charity, recently took their campaign for a change to the benefits system for families with a child with a diagnosis of cancer .”We want to try and change that so that payment becomes instantaneous (on diagnosis). We would also like a payment, particularly for families in our scenario, who have lost a child.”They said.
Spending the last time together
The couple took a long time off from their busy and hectic schedule to take care and spend the last time together with their son Adam . They felt that Adam being their only child require their proper care and they should devote their time looking after him despite knowing he won’t survive for long.
Adam with his father, image source-newsletter.co.uk
An estimated 100 children in Northern Ireland are diagnosed with cancer annually .In many cases with the impact of the illness being so devastating on the child, the commitments of appointments and dealing with the symptoms of the illness, parents and/or guardians may find it almost impossible to work and simultaneously keeping the care of their child .
Soon as the couple’s son died , they had to return to their work “Adam died on August 3 and myself and Sara had to go back to work in October because we had to keep a roof over our heads.”
Aim to Improve the situation for all
They understand that nothing is going to improve things for them and it’s not going to help Adam, but Adam always wanted to help other people so they are trying to carry on his legacy so that no other parent should lose their child at tender age only because cost of the bills going northwards and money making hindrance in the process of diagnosis.
