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FEBRUARY 2016
Page 7 VIP day to raise funds for charity
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Centre benefits patients living with rare diseases Show your support Rare Disease Day was founded to raise awareness amongst the general public and decision-makers about rare diseases and their impact on patients’ lives. Come along to the atrium on February 29 between 10am and 3pm to find out about the Trust’s Centre for Rare Diseases. QEHB Charity volunteers will be on hand collecting loose change and selling charity merchandise, as well as providing information about the difference your support can make to patients living with rare diseases.
More than 1,100 patients have already undergone treatment in just the few months since the doors opened at the Centre for Rare Diseases (CfRD). The new facility, based in the Heritage Building (QE Hospital) brings together a supraregional, integrated, multi-speciality and multi-disciplinary centre of excellence for care of patients living with rare diseases. The idea is that patients requiring specialist care can attend one-stop clinics to see all relevant clinicians in one visit. An extensive fundraising campaign coordinated by the QEHB Charity with support
from The Birmingham Mail helped provide extra equipment for the facility, over and above core NHS facilities. Dr Graham Lipkin, consultant nephrologist and clinical lead for the CfRD, said: “The centre is a unique asset to the Trust. We now have 34 rare disease clinics running and have seen over 1,100 patients since opening. “The Trust treats a range of rare conditions, and many of these patients have conditions that affect multiple organs. “This means they need treatment from a variety of clinicians who fall across divisional
specialities. The transfer of rare disease clinics into the centre is an opportunity to review the way services are delivered and change the way we work to deliver a first-class, one-stop service that meets the needs of patients.” The CfRD is part of the Institute of Translational Medicine, which works in collaboration with the University of Birmingham, Birmingham Children’s Hospital and the Women’s Hospital. It brings benefits for industry, the economy and patients through the rapid assessment of cost-effective new drugs and medical devices. To find out more about Rare Disease Day see the centre pages.
Love at first sight for lab’ technicians It was a double celebration when Colin and Jacqui Mason, pictured, received their NHS long-service awards from University Hospitals Birmingham (UHB) Chief Executive Dame Julie Moore – because love had blossomed for the couple 40 years earlier on their very first day at work. “The very first day we started work we met each other and it was pretty much the classic story of love at first sight,” said Colin. “Within about a month of meeting we started going out with each other and 40 years later, here we are married and we’re still going out with each other. It’s the best day’s work I ever did!” The pair met in September 1975, when Colin was 16 and Jacqui 17, on the first day of an induction course at Stowe House, Lichfield, for NHS starters. They both wanted to become laboratory technicians and Colin was starting his training at the old Dudley Road Hospital while Jacqui was based at Walsall Manor Hospital. As their love blossomed so did their careers, taking in most of the major hospitals around Birmingham until they ended up working together some 15 years ago at Selly Oak and the old Queen Elizabeth hospitals, which became UHB. True love never runs entirely smoothly, of
course and their relationship has survived an early break-up – and a spell when Colin was Jacqui’s boss. “There’s no other way of putting it: after we had been going out for a couple of months she dumped me,” recalls Colin. “There was a year when we would regularly see each other at college and not speak to each other. But to my eternal gratitude Jacqui then asked me to go to a party with her and we never looked back.” Colin, now 56, popped the question on Valentine’s Day in 1978 and they married in 1980. Both Birmingham born and bred, they now live in Solihull with sons Christian, 25, and Michael, 23. Jacqui, 57, has worked part-time as a biomedical scientist since the children were born while Colin moved from his lab-based role to become pathology IT manager at UHB two years ago. The couple are hoping to retire when Colin is 60 and spend more time indulging their passion for cruises. “By that time we’ll have clocked up almost 90 years of NHS service between us, the vast majority of which we’ve very much enjoyed,” said Colin.
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