Desperate mother told she must raise £1.5 million to save one-year-old son's life
The mum of a one-year-old boy with a severe health condition has been told she must raise £1.5 million to afford the procedure that will save his life.
Jasmin Roberts, from Wrexham, Wales, was told that her son Ollie has a rare congenital heart defect when he was just two-weeks-old, leaving her in bits. The NHS then told her that Ollie would be introduced to the palliative care team as hospitals didn't have the expertise to carry the operation out.
Jasmin is now looking to sell her house and move back in with her own mother in order to raise the £1.5 million needed to pay for the operation on the US West Coast.
The Brit admitted that she was 'blindsided' by the news at first, after sending her son to go for a prolonged jaundice screening a couple of weeks after his birth as he was 'just a bit too yellow', before finding that his oxygen saturation levels were recorded at 85 percent.
Advert
Healthy levels are said to be between 98 and 100 percent; Ollie's levels are now between 65 and 70 percent.
Recalling what happened after the scan, she said to Daily Mail: "It all just happened really, really quick. Like it was one nurse in the room and suddenly I blinked and Ollie was being rushed to the paediatric intensive care unit… we didn't even know what was going on."
While it was first believed he had sepsis or a heart condition, Jasmin didn't consider the latter as she was tested for the health condition during pregnancy.
He was first treated for sepsis, meaning he couldn't be fed milk as she recalled it being 'pure torture' as he would scream in the night as she had no choice but to continue pumping. She was told the following morning that her baby was diagnosed with pulmonary atresia with ventricular septal defect and major aortopulmonary collateral arteries (PA-VSD MAPCAs), which essentially meant his arteries were too small.
Senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, Regina Giblin, explained: "Pulmonary atresia with ventricular septal defect (VSD) is a serious heart condition present at birth that involves two main problems.
"Pulmonary atresia is when the valve that normally allows blood to flow from the heart to the lungs (the pulmonary valve) is not properly formed, which causes a blockage of blood flow from the heart to the lungs."
She added that the VSD is a hole between the ventricles (lower chambers) of the hearts, which allows blood to mix in the sides of the heart, but due to the condition, 'the baby's body may not get enough oxygen-rich blood to be pumped around the body'.
Ollie may need medication to keep a temporary blood vessel open, she explained, while needing surgery to improve blood flow to the lungs and repair his heart.
While pulmonary atresia occurs in one in every 10,000 births, pulmonary artery along with a VSD happens anywhere between four and ten per 100,000 births, say Science Direct.
UK and European hospitals couldn't operate on Ollie as his case was too complex, with local hospitals saying that they feared that 'they'd just make it worse'. The surgeon who was said to pioneer this particular surgery, known also as pulmonary artery reconstruction, operates at Stanford Medicine Children's Health in California.
Jasmin now needs £1.5 million after abandoning plans to raise £3 million, after finding out that 'there's a possibility that Alder Hey [Children's Hospital] may be able to carry out the second stage of Ollie's surgery here in the UK', after completing the first stage across the pond.
Writing on the GoFundMe post, she said: "This is amazing news, because it means we can now focus on getting him to America for stage one, which is the most urgent part. That brings our fundraising goal down to £1.5million. Still a huge number, but now, it feels slightly more reachable."
After his arteries are enlarged, it's said that he would be ready to go through a 'full repair' just six to nine months later, while Ollie could also have the 'massive hole in his heart' fixed as part of the surgery.
Jasmin described her boy as 'my absolute world. He's like my best friend. He's attached to my side constantly.'
So far, they have raised over £43,000; you can donate to the GoFundMe here.
Joshua Nair