Children’ s Hospital to remove the lung that had collapsed due to the cancer. This led to her other organs collapsing on one side and caused her to develop scoliosis of her spine, requiring further surgery to allow her to grow as normally as possible.
Despite her challenging start in life, Zoe doesn’ t let this hold her back and has even been inspired from her experience to become a children’ s nurse. She said:“ I’ m so grateful to the paediatric staff at St George’ s Hospital for looking after me, and for always being there for me throughout my life. Thank you to the nurses who told me to follow my dreams and never give up.”
Anita D’ Souza, Head of Nursing for PICU at St George’ s, said:“ Everyone at St George’ s Hospital PICU is so proud of Zoe, and I feel privileged to see how much she has achieved over the years.”
Jacqueline Totterdell, Group Chief Executive said:“ Zoe is an exceptional and inspirational young woman, and I’ m overjoyed to hear she wants to join our wonderful PICU team. I have no doubt Zoe will make a brilliant and dedicated children’ s nurse and I wish her all the very best as she starts her journey to making that a reality.”
Notes to Editors St George’ s children’ s services are rated outstanding by the CQC.
Every year St George’ s treats over 130,000 children and deliver 5000 babies.
About two thirds of our patients come in through the Paediatric Emergency Department. The remaining children are referred from our region or because of the department’ s special expertise.
In addition to hosting one of London’ s largest and most comprehensive children’ s surgical unit, a largest infectious disease unit, one of only 3 paediatric trauma centres, neurology service and paediatric neurosurgery unit as well as a host of other paediatric tertiary services, we also have the only oncology PICU for South London, Kent, Surrey and Essex.
St George’ s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is the largest healthcare provider, major teaching hospital and tertiary centre for southwest London, Surrey and beyond – and one of the largest healthcare providers in the UK – serving a population of 3.5 million.
Its main site, St George’ s Hospital – one of the country’ s principal teaching hospitals – is shared with St George’ s, University of London, which trains medical students and carries out advanced medical research.
St George’ s is one of 11 adult and children major trauma centres in the UK, one of eight hyper acute stroke units and one of the biggest and busiest of the eight heart attack centres in London.
St George’ s is the only hospital site in Southwest London where children with cancer can receive oncology surgery, paediatric intensive care, neurosurgery, as well as oncology care, all on the same site with the other specialties that are required as well.
Source: https:// www. stgeorges. nhs. uk / newsitem / rare-cancer-teen-survivor-inspired-to-be-a-nurse-thanks-toteam-who-saved-her-life
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