Demystifying Death Week

No family should face the death of a child confused or alone – which is why Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity recognises Demystifying Death week, taking place from May 6-12.

Thanks to our supporters, including our dedicated In Memory families, support for bereaved families is available at the children’s hospital in a multitude of ways.

Families can place a leaf on our Tree of Remembrance, or talk to Child Bereavement UK, whose bereavement support team connected with and aided over 200 families at the children’s hospital in the last 12 months, thanks to charity funding.

This service extends across Glasgow and the West and is available in the city’s three maternity units — Princess Royal Maternity, the Royal Alexandria Maternity Unit and the Queen Elizabeth Maternity Unit — for staff and families.

Child Bereavement UK’s staff training and guidance also reached over 400 of our NHS heroes in the last year, providing information and emotional support.

How Sharon demystifies death with Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity 

Sharon Newall is a member of the Paediatric Oncology Outreach Nurse Specialists team, or POONS.

She and her colleagues support patients and their families in the hospital’s Schiehallion Ward, for children with cancer. The team also provides palliative care so children can be taken home, and supports families after a child has died. Sharon is on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to visit families at home and help them before, during and after the death of a child.

The POONS team recently needed the help of Child Bereavement UK’s debrief service after the unexpected death of a child. When emotions are high in these situations, the debrief allows staff to talk through the situation in a respectful and regulated forum.

Sharon believes it’s so important to be up front with patients, their siblings, and close friends when it comes to death.

“We have chats about death when other staff are a little scared to discuss it,” she said. “Sometimes, a doctor won’t say the word ‘die’, and parents can pick that up as the child is going to be okay.

“It can be so confusing for families. They can come out and think the child will still be alive. Then they pass on that mixed message to others, or they try to hide it from siblings. Our advice is, ‘if a child is brave enough to ask, we must be brave enough to answer’.

Sharon and the POONS team are supported in providing palliative care by Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity’s memory-making programme. She helps capture footprints of children in palliative care, creating an imprint that will last forever. Short breaks, supported by Marion’s Still Smiling, also create lasting, cherished memories.

“The memory-making funded by Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity is amazing, and I’m thankful that I’m now trained to do it at the houses I visit. Sometimes we can get the siblings or parents to help press down the little foot or hand, or we make a wee bracelet or necklace together.

“That has an amazing impact on the siblings especially. They feel involved, and it comes back to being honest and up front with children. Making these memories is harder when you hide things.

“The short breaks are amazing. It’s emotionally but also financially draining when a child is dying of cancer – not all families continue to receive their regular income. To get the memory of a short break provided for by the charity is incredible.

“We have a family away on a break just now who would not afford to go otherwise, and they are making some magical memories.

“At our monthly bereavement group, which is supported by Child Bereavement UK, the families regularly bring up the memories they made on these breaks.”