Baby Isaac Fund is a UK registered charity set up by Ian and Cristina Villiers to provide neo-natal surgeons with much needed new specialist equipment and fund research to find ways of helping the estimated 3000 babies who are born every year needing surgery. Ian and Cristina’s son, Isaac had several operations immediately following his birth and received specialist care at the Neonatal Unit in St George’s Hospital in Tooting, London. Despite recovering from his time at hospital to go home with his parents, Isaac tragically passed away following complications caused by surgery, aged 13 months old, during the summer of 2010.
Baby Isaac Fund honours Isaac’s memory to help other babies get better and recover from surgery.
Although Baby Isaac Fund has been set up to help neo-natal units across the country, it is initially looking to focus fundraising efforts on St George’s Hospital in Tooting, where Isaac received all his care. The surgeons, doctors and nurses at St George’s work so hard to help babies get better. An average of 143 newborns (up to 4 weeks old) receive surgery at St George’s every year. These babies aren’t just from south-west London but are referred from Surrey, Sussex and even further afield (as in Isaac’s case). They help a lot of babies and do great work but unfortunately don’t get as much recognition as perhaps some of the bigger name children’s hospitals.
Neo-Natal units and the surgeons within them work tirelessly to try and secure funding for new specialist equipment. However, with such little money to go round, they make do with what little they’ve got to help babies get better. Baby Isaac Fund offers them a helping hand to source the latest new specialist ‘less invasive’ equipment so babies have a better chance of recovering to go home with Mum and Dad.
To make a much needed donation, visit Just Giving – www.justgiving.com/babyisaacfund
