About the Silver Swimmers

We are a group of swimmers, all over the age of 60, who have decided to take on a challenge to support COSMIC charity. 

Our goal is to swim the distance of the English Channel in relay teams (1,000 lengths in one day) on April 4th 2022 at Pools on the Park in Richmond Upon Thames. Our ages range from 60 - 80 years, we swim in the outdoor pool in Richmond throughout the year, whatever the weather. Professor Parviz Habibi, one the charities’ founders, is one of the Silver Swimmers. He is a paediatrician who helped establish the Intensive Care Unit at St Mary’s Hospital in 1992, and the rapid response retrieval service to transport critically ill children to the unit which was the first of its kind, and has since been adopted throughout the UK. He helped create COSMIC in 1994 as he recognised the need for better care for critically ill children than was possible within the NHS budget.

About COSMIC
                                          www.cosmiccharity.org.uk

COSMIC charity supports the paediatric intensive care unit and neonatal intensive care units at St Mary’s and Queen Charlotte’s Hospitals in London. Since its inception COSMIC has:

• Purchased over £2,000,000 of life saving
  equipment which the NHS is unable to fund
• Spent over £500,000 on ground-breaking research
  into paediatric health.
• Raised £1.5 million to create COSMIC House –
  onsite accommodation for families in intensive care.
• Funded incubators for babies in intensive care.
• Provided hundreds of hours counselling for
  families and frontline staff.

COSMIC helps to support:

Children

The children’s intensive care unit at St Mary's Hospital treats 500-600 critically ill children of all ages. Without this specialist care, many of these children would not survive.

Babies

Each year, more than 1,000 babies are admitted to the neonatal units. They look after premature and 'extremely pre-term'
babies (born before 27 weeks' gestation) and infants with complex medical needs.

Our aim

The Silver Swimmers aim to continue this help by supporting the patients, their families and the amazing staff at the children’s and neonatal intensive care units at St Mary’s and Queen Charlotte’s hospitals. We would like to raise additional funds to support parent accommodation for the families of critically ill children, these families come from all over South-East England and are displaced from home, many would not be able to visit their children who are often on life-support, without the accommodation provided by COSMIC. The cost of one night’s stay for a family is £100. Our target is to raise £10,000 to help support the cost of this accommodation for one year.

None of COSMIC’s achievements would have been possible without the hard work of supporters. Donations can be made through JustGiving, it’s simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

On behalf of the Silver Swimmers - Thank you very much.