Ward 51 Cardiac Speech and Language Therapist Jess Symonds was appointed last year, thanks to your donations.
Speech And Language Therapy (SALT) has the power to transform feeding, swallowing and communication outcomes and improve a child’s quality of life.
Jess sent us some anonymous feedback from families who have benefitted from her role, to show the effectiveness of this service:
“Considering my daughter’s heart condition, we were glad there is a team who are tasked in helping improve our daughter’s feeding. They gave us a specific plan around her condition and our daughter now drinks milk without any issues and eats solid food with such ease.
“Would like to thank Jessica Symonds who was so helpful and regularly attended to my daughter when in hospital. She and the team were patient and very meticulous in how they were to treat my daughter.
“We were incredibly worried in the beginning about our daughter’s health and growth, as she was on an NG tube due to a throat issue and feeding troubles. The SALT teams plan to get her off of the NG tube was gradual as her condition improved but it worked. Thank you.”
“The support specifically from this role is invaluable when your child is so poorly from birth and hasn’t established feeding yet or if your child is continually changing between different feeding methods.
“Jess was an unbelievable support in supporting my child’s safety to eat whilst also supporting me as a new mother navigate my feeding role. Working alongside Alix the Dietician you need both roles to succeed in the child feeding.”
“Very knowledgeable and excellent with all the help and information we continually receive whether it was on the ward, at home or coming to high risk clinic. Jess has really helped me with my child in terms of moving forward with weaning and drinking and he continues to progress and get better all the time.
“I wouldn’t have been able to do this without Jess’s knowledge and it’s helped me gain so much confidence with my child and with the condition he has.”
Jess’s role was only possible thanks to donors including Caddick Group and The Hospital Saturday Fund, and the amazing support of our fundraising community. Thank you!
We can only keep supporting life-changing projects like this one because of you
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