31st Oct 2022. Thank you to everyone who has donated so generously and helped remember our beautiful boy. Together, to-date we have fundraised over £350k in James' name, enabling Great Ormond Street to buy state-of-the art surgical equipment for a specialist theatre, an anesthetic room and five ventilators (including two sophisticated transport ventilators for their CATS ambulances) to help save little boys and girls. Please continue to support us to reach our next target of £500k to buy two new anesthetic machines. Thank you xxx

Our story:

On 21^st September 2016 our baby boy James William Shaw was born. Three minutes later his twin sister Isabel followed, two beautiful new siblings for our 18 month-old daughter Alexa. Jimmy really was exceptionally handsome with a full head of auburn hair with a highlight streak of blond on his crown, which had seemingly already undergone a designer haircut/styling, so that the nurses at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital nicknamed him ‘One Direction’. Both twins were thriving at home and we were excitedly beginning to look to the future together as a family of five.

At just five and a half weeks old our little Jimmy became suddenly, unexpectedly and desperately unwell with presumed sepsis (an overwhelming infection) and a complicating blood clot to his bowel. Despite the heroic efforts of the staff of our local hospital, the Children's Acute Transfer Service (CATS) ambulance team and ultimately Great Ormond Street Hospital Intensive Care Unit, Jimmy could not be saved. He died in our arms on the evening of 31^st October, covered in the kisses of his mummy and daddy who told him how loved he was. It is beyond words how traumatised we were left by those 2 days of seeing him so desperately unwell and how bereft Jimmy’s death left us, our hearts were truly broken.

Three weeks after Jimmy died, and just two days after we had buried him, his twin sister Izzy too suddenly became unwell of an unrelated condition (a diaphragmatic hernia with malrotation), we were just seemingly that unlucky. Within 24 hours Izzy was undergoing emergency, life-or-death surgery at Great Ormond Street. We genuinely believed we were going to lose a second child that day, it was nothing short of torture. Thankfully Izzy’s operation was successful and she recovered.

Jimmy's mummy Emily is a hospital doctor, and can hand-on-heart honestly say that in 16 years experience as a clinician has never seen such a unanimous, continuous and determined effort and bloody-minded resolve to save a life as with Jimmy. The medical staff gave blood, sweat and tears to save our little boy, he received the best possible care in the world, by the most humane doctors and nurses we have ever met and for that we are beholden to them. Beyond the world-class care both he and Izzy received at GOSH, our family received unbounded care and kindness, practical support (such as neighbouring accommodation) and pastoral support that continues to this day (including bereavement counselling). GOSH gave us our very best hope of saving Jimmy, saved the life of Izzy and took extremely delicate and humane care of us parents in the process.

Very soon after these experiences we became resolved on trying to repay some of our perceived incalculable debt to GOSH, nurture something positive out of such a tragic loss and continue to strive to keep Jimmy’s memory alive. We are pulling together an army of impossibly loyal family and friends to join us in fundraising a hugely ambitious amount of money for GOSH, specifically in Jimmy’s name, as his legacy.

We have already paid for five new ventilators for GOSH in Jimmy’s name (we needed £103,800 for these in all). These include 'Sophie' ventilators for the Children’s Acute Transfer Service (CATS) team bringing sick newborns, babies and children to GOSH, while the other will be used within GOSH. For the first time, these will enable very sick children to be transferred whilst receiving the most intensive ventilation ('oscillation') available. Up until now (Sophie ventilators have only recently become available), the CATS team have had to 'step-down' babies and children being transferred to GOSH from oscillators onto conventional, transfer ventilators when being taken to GOSH for specialist care, which has jeopardised their deteriorating. Dr Ramnarayan, lead GOSH consultant for CATS (who also happened to have been the doctor who stabilised Jimmy sufficiently to transfer him to GOSH) believes that this may make all the difference for 25-30 of the sickest children every year. Help us buy GOSH buy even more life-saving equipment! What we buy next depends on how much we can raise: We next raised a further £237,000 to kit out a whole theatre to perform specialist gastrointestinal neonatal surgery like both Jimmy and Isabel received and anesthetic room. Please continue to support us to reach our next target of £500k to buy two new anesthetic machines.

Please join us in fundraising and/or give what you can. Please email us at littlejimmybrighterfuturefund@gmail.com if you would like to join us in a fundraising event.

Love and gratitude from Pete, Emily, Lexy, Izzy and Autumn Shaw xx

You can donate directly here.

Please if you wish to send us a cheque, make it out to Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity or GOSHCC. If you are donating through your work payroll, please use charity number 1160024

Please follow us and share our links on these mediums: Facebook: @littlejimmybrighterfuturefund Twitter: @littlejimmybff Instagram @littlejimmybff

Our GOSH shopping basket to-date:

5 ventilators for the GOSH ambulance (CATS team) (£103,800 total):
2x Sophie Ventilators (at £27,000 each)
3x Hamilton Ventilators (at £16,600 each)

Press:

Evening Standard: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/parents-of-twin-boy-who-died-fundraise-for-equipment-to-save-30-babies-a-year-a3655666.html

Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/pete-shaw/the-steps-we-take-to-try-_b_18224892.html

Islington Gazette: http://www.islingtongazette.co.uk/news/islington-couple-raise-100-000-for-great-ormond-street-hospital-in-memory-of-baby-son-james-who-died-a-year-ago-1-5225815

Islington Tribune: http://islingtontribune.com/article/jimmy-the-baby-who-left-150k-legacy-to-hospital