Mark Clayton was a 52 year old, well known and respected, local driving instructor. He was born and grew up in Shrewsbury and lived a full and happy life with his partner Lisa and her three children.
In late December 2010 Mark became unwell; friends and family teased him that it was ‘man-flu’ – 1 week later, 2 days after his 52nd birthday, Mark was admitted to ITU at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital. It was quickly diagnosed that Mark had contracted Swine-Flu and despite the tremendous efforts and unfaltering attention of ITU, Mark sadly died on 12th January 2011.
His partner Lisa has obviously struggled to come to terms with Marks sudden death, but she has been insistent that she wanted something positive to come out of this tragedy. Lisa has enlisted the support of Marks family and crazy friends to launch a fundraising campaign to support the tremendous work of the ITU departments in our Counties hospitals.
ITU provided fantastic care to Mark during his stay, despite the exceptionally difficult circumstances. Lisa spent all day and night everyday for 12 days with Mark in ITU, but due to a lack of facilities for relatives, she had to ask the exceptionally stretched staff for hot drinks or to heat meals for her. The staff were always obliging and cared for Lisa exceptionally well, but they acknowledged that their facilities for relatives could be better.
We are hoping that our fundraising campaign will raise enough money to provide much needed facilities for ITU and provide an area that relatives can be comfortable, make hot drinks and snacks and take time out from the emotionally exhausting circumstances. If we raise enough money the ITU departments have also highlighted that they are trying to raise money for a bladder scanner.
Another reason that we are doing this is to raise awareness of the very real risks around Swine Flu, everyone thinks "it wont happen to me", "I'm only 52" "I have a young family" but as we now sadly understand, it can happen to anyone. We will be collecting in pubs and town centres and generally making a nuisance of ourselves during the 3 month campaign (May - July) finishing with a Sky Dive in Whitchurch on 30th July. Please make a donation on our Just Giving Web Page and follow our campaign on Facebook.
