L-R John Morgan, Laure Lucette, Julie Davis, Kristie Cataffo, Trevor Adams, Linda Hanley, Bev Pearson

Kristie Cataffo and Trevor Adams

L-R Julie Davis, Kristie Cataffo, Trevor Adams

Mike and Jo Wilson

Linda Hanley

Sam Ansell

John Morgan and Laure Cherie from Anglepoise

L-R: Bev Pearson, Gina Mitchell, Rosie Mitchell, Mike Wilson, Jo Wilson, Emma Thomas

Daniel Broom - Pleased it's all over?

The saints pub In Millbrook, Southampton ran 2 fundraising days for Friends of PICU. The first was a family fun day on a wet bank holiday monday and the 2nd a bungee jumping night.The Pub Manager,Paula bravely did 2 jumps.

The Palombo family lead by Gabrielle held a christmas fayre in Seaford College, nr Chichester and raised a fantastic £2222 for Friends of PICU, which will be used to help buy the next ambulance.
Thank you to all the helpers and supporters on the day.

Our patrons Sarah Parish & James Murray recently undertook a trek through the mountains of cambodia & vietnam in aid of Friends of PICU.
They are aiming to raise £100,000 for PICU to fund a psycologist.

Steves 2nd hair cutting day, which raised £202 and was attended by Jules from Heart FM and a local couciller Don Thomas plus lots of other kind supporters.
Thank you to the Echo for covering the event for him.
SEE NEWS PAGE !!!

ACT machine Donated by HGB & Friends of PICU following Golf Classic II

NIPPI ventilator donated by HGB and friends of PICU following the Golf classic III

Presentation by the Wingate family who held a party for Callum's birthday (seen in picture)
The money raised brought a set of laryngascopes and blades for intubating children.(As seen in picture)

The Bascran family ran the fleet 1/2 marathon and raised money towards the sonisite equiptment, the next large piece of equiptment PICU are asking us to buy for them (£30,000)

A representation of Lady Freemasons from the Portsmouth Lodge of Duty No.77 witnesses their current president, Rebecca Manchip, present a cheque for £980 to Friends of PICU.

Rebecca, who is also the Charity's Vice Treasurer, nominated Friends of PICU as her charity of the year during her turn of office. The Lady Freemasons raised the money by holding several fundraising social events throughout the year.

Grateful parents Paul Casey and Rachel Slade along with their son Rory, from Southampton, presented the Southampton General Hospital’s P.I.C.U unit with a life-saving piece of equipment on Thursday 4th December.

The Apnoea Alarm which is used to assess the breathing patterns of small babies on the unit once they have been taken off a ventilator machine, is being presented by the couple to say thank-you to the staff who cared for their son Rory.

Dad, Paul, has described the care his son received as being, “Exemplary and everything we could have hoped for.” He describes the gift as, “A way of saying thank-you to the excellent staff who did everything they could to care for Rory.”

The alarm, which cost £650, will enable the staff in the special unit, to continue caring for hundreds of the south’s children. Critical care nurse, Jo Palmer says, “A baby often forgets how to breath once they have been put on ventilator and so the Apnoea Alarm is a key piece of equipment. Our sincere thanks go to Paul and Rachel for making this very kind donation.”

We had a variety of costumes. Stephanie, Amanda and Issy from HR were dressed as Queen of Hearts, Bertie Basset, and Andy Pandy. The Bertie Basset costume was extremely hot to wear but Amanda never moaned. The girls were fantastic and as usual collected more as the male staff seemed to prefer to give to them. Thanks to Sonia who gave the girls the time off to collect from the site. Also many thanks to the HR Client Centre, who put over £100 in the bucket which was raised by raffles, guess the baby and numerous other activities. Warren from Accenture was dressed as a monk. From the fire section we had Paul who was dressed as Captain America (unfortunately we didn’t get much collecting out of him after he went in the Kissing Booth), John and Stuart who were Batman and Robin (John who was dressed as batman made his son cry when we visited the Boscombe play group), Richard who was dressed as spiderman, and Chris who was dressed as superman. Thanks to the staff of hanger 45 who donated £117 by eating doughnuts. (I believe they ate 2600 this year.), Thanks also to Debbie and her staff at the staff restaurant who provided refreshments, Viv in imagery who made the posters, the post room staff who put all the posters up, Enterprise who provided the vehicles, and Focus for the buckets. Also a big thank you to everybody who donated.

Pictured from left to right: Kym Sykes (Consultant PICU), Rosie Mitchell (PICU nurse and treasurer for Friends of PICU charity) Ambar Noor and mother Sonia Kauser.

Ambar Noor returned to PICU to see the piece of equipment her mother, family and friends raised funds towards. The equipment pictured is a CFAM (cerebral function analysis monitor), which is used to analyse electrical activity in the brain.

Ambar was admitted to Southampton General Hospital’s Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU)on the 29th September 2007 when she was only 5 weeks old suffering with late onset Group B streptococcus which in turn caused her to contract meningitis. Ambar was given only a 1% chance of recovery. After a 1 week stay in PICU and a further 2 weeks in the High Dependency Unit and the children’s ward she was discharged and has now made a full recovery. Sonia and the rest of the family are very grateful to all the staff on PICU. Sonia would like to say a very special thank you to Kim Sykes and John Papperchan; the consultants who cared for Ambar in PICU and saved her life.

Sonia wrote a letter to all her family and friends asking for donations to PICU where Ambar was treated. Sonia and Ambar would like to take this opportunity to thank all their family and friends who helped to raise £3419 towards the CFAM. They would also like to say a big thank you to Xeretec office supplies in Chandlers ford for their generous donation to PICU.

George Tyres presented a cheque for £1300 to PICU Consultant Serena Cotteral following a horse show run by his grandma & aunty. This added to the amount already rasied for PICU. All the money raised will be used to buy a sonisite machine

AT 4 weeks old, Ralph had emergency open heart surgery to correct crticial aortic stenosis. During an unbelievably difficult time, Callie and Andy were so grateful to all the PICU staff for not only saving Ralph's life but for the compassion and care they showed to them as well. With the help of some friends, they organised a charity quiz evening with the aim to raise £1000 so that they could attempt to show their appreciation for everything PICU had done for them as family. Thanks to the genorosity of many people just over £1500 was raised which was a fantastic result! As the quiz night was named, 'Thank you PICU!'

Louise Kovacs along with her son Jozsef and Louise's parents, presenting a cheque to nurse Gemma from PICU for £2889.55. Louise, Jozsef and Louise's Mum Pat completed a 10k walk on 9th May 2009 along the South Downs Way to raise money for the Unit, following Jozsef's stay in the Unit at the begining of the year. The money they have raised will be used to purchase a CO2 Tidal Wave Capnograph.

Charlie & Pete Staples presenting a cheque in December '09 following Pete & Charlie's sister Kathyrn undertaking a sponsored skydive in August 09. They raised £4587.07 which will be used to buy two nursing chairs for the Unit and another piece of equipment, when required. Well done on raising such a fantastic amount!!

Damien Gutteridge and his daughter Chloe presenting a cheque for £2600 to Friends of PICU, on behalf of Capita SIP Services. Damien nominated Friends of PICU to be one of Capita's nominated charity's last year.

Chris and Gill Godwin presenting a cheque to nurse Kate Charles for £10,000 on behalf of the Esmee Godwin Fund on 7th June 2010. Much of the money was raised by Chris, his brother Roy, and best friends Kevin Cahill, Ian Cahill,and Ant Nickless climbing Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Mount Snowdon in 23 hour and 52 minutes on 7th June 2009. Money was raised from generosity of the Dorset people supporting various fundraising events.
The money raised will be going towards the ambulance fund as a new ambulance is likely to be needed by PICU in 2012 and Friends of PICU are hoping to making a substantial donation towards this.

On 17th June 2010, Simon Dinning on behalf of Ogier LLP presented a cheque for £3851.40 to Sister Jo Palmer. Ogier raised the money throughtout 2009 by holding bake sales, raffles at their Summer Ball and Christmas party and charging people £2 for the privilege of being able to wear (when permitted) casual/dress down attire to work on any other day other than Friday. A weekly bonus ball competition also enabled £50 per month to be put aside for the charity.

It is the policy of the partners to double the monies which the staff raise, hence a fantastic £3851.40 was donated to Friends of PICU. The Charity was nominated by the company as one of the partners children had to use the facilcities there recently and thanks to the excellent care at the Unit, has gone onto make a full recovery.

Pictured below is the new PICU retrieval ambulance. It replaces the existing six year old ambulance and, begun operations retrieving critically ill children from referring hospitals in the south east region on Wednesday 14th May 2008. The crew's complement on a typical retrieval is a Doctor, Nurse, Technician and Driver. It can carry one stretcher/pod/incubator and the monitoring required for the ongoing care of a child while in transit.

For anyone who likes to know the mechanical side of the vehicle, we are told that beneath the hood is a 4.0Lt V6 Mercedes diesel engine. The Mercedes chassis is slightly (30cm) longer than the standard NHS frontline ambulance.

Emma West(mum), Linda House(Grandma) and friends of Megan Rowe did a sponsored walk around Southampton and rasied over £800 to go towards a sonisite machine for PICU. A piece of equiptment Megan has used!borrowed but hopefully a new one will soon be brought for PICU

our first christmas party was a great success. 40 children and parents enjoyed party games, face painting, magician, party food, adult tombola, tea and mince pies and a Great chat with friends