The little girl who is missing being in hospital after spending 14 months on a ward

A courageous little girl - who had a heart transplant at the age of two - is missing all her hospital friends.

Mini super hero Beatrix Archbold is adjusting to the outside world after spending 14 months at Freeman Hospital in Newcastle.

She went home recently after her transplant.

She misses her doctor and nurse friends

But Bea (as she is known by her family) keeps asking about the friends she made on the ward where she spent more than half her life.

Dad Terry said: "She misses the doctors and nurses and keeps asking for them, particularly George who used to draw little smiley faces on her hand."

Bea does get to see them from time to time. Dad added: "She goes to weekly transplant clinics so she does get to see the team again.

"It is understandable that she misses them as they have been her family for such a long time."

The toddler is 'adjusting to life outside of hospital and is enjoying seeing lots of new things," said mum Cheryl, from Roker.

A trip to see the goats and chickens

"She seems to understand she can now do things she could not when she was connected to the Berlin Heart, particularly being able to walk around and be mobile."

The Echo told recently how Beatrix had enjoyed a bike ride and a visit to the farm to meet goats and chickens.

The family spoke to us to keep raising awareness of organ donations.

Terry said statistics show there are only 50 to 60 child donors a year yet there are more than 200 UK children waiting for life-saving organs.

Surgeons saved Bea's life

Beatrix’s own story unfolded in May 2022.

The Archbold family had returned from a trip to Disney World in Florida and thought Beatrix caught Covid.

She had stopped drinking, had a rash on her neck and the family dialled 111.

After going to A&E, a doctor at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead detected a heart murmur. Tests showed one side of her heart was enlarged and not functioning properly.

She had an operation to fit a line into her body so she could receive medication but she had a cardiac arrest and was saved by expert surgeons at the Freeman Hospital who performed open heart surgery.

Time to talk about organ donation

The family know only too well what losing a child is like.

Their daughter Isabel was stillborn around five years ago. The couple agreed her heart could be donated for medical research.

They want Wearside people to start talking more about the sensitive topic of donating a child’s organs.

It is vital that the discussion happens now because it is too upsetting for a parent to consider when they have just lost a child, they say.

For more on organ donation, visit https://www.organdonation.nhs.uk/