Foundation offers helping hand

By Mark Stevens
25/10/16

Heading into hospital can often be a frightening experience for youngsters, but thanks to the Exeter Foundation, the official club charity of the Chiefs, things are about to become a little easier.

Now children using the Medical Imaging Department at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital can have their own ‘comfort buddy’ in the form of a little Big Chief toy.

The hospital has recently introduced a new MRI buddy scheme where they will offer young patients who need an MRI a soft toy to cuddle when having a scan to make it less scary. They will initially be offering this to children undergoing treatment for cancer, but hope to extend it to all paediatric patients in the future.

Ellie Ormesher, Senior Cross Sectioning Radiographer/Paediatric Lead, explained: “Having an MRI scan can be really quite daunting for children. Now, thanks to the Exeter Foundation’s kind donation, we’ll be able to offer them an MRI buddy to choose from, which they can cuddle during the scan and take home afterwards. The children we scan who have cancer often need to come in for multiple scans, so we hope this will help take some of the anxiety away for them.”

Nine-year-old Mia Ormesher became the first child to receive one of the Foundation’s MRI Buddies when several Trustees from the Exeter Foundation visited the department recently.

Mia was presented with the first little Big Chief by Exeter Foundation chairman Tony Rowe OBE because she kindly starred in a film showing the journey of a child undergoing an MRI scan to help young patients understand what to expect.