Every week MU members spend a day at Great Ormond Street Hospital, offering refreshments to the parents of patients in the hospital. They can listen to the parents' fears and pray with them if that is what is wanted, or just provide the parents with an opportunity to get away from it all.



 

It is such a privilege to work with the chaplain team who are kept very busy throughout the hospital but always have time to be with us on a Tuesday morning.
 
Our project at GOSH has been the inspiration for other MU diocese to take this forward to other hospitals.
 
Recently we have been left a legacy by a past Central President/London Diocese President and it was decided to purchase an Aumbry, a recess in a church in which sacred vessels are kept, for the St,.Christopher’s Chapel in the hospital.  It is outside this chapel that Mothers’ Union serve the “coffee, cake and chat” for families and staff in the hospital.   



Brief History

A request from the Chaplains at Great Ormond Street Hospital for sick children was received by the Mothers’ Union in Westminster at the end of 2003 for a group of members to provide coffee, home made cakes and non  medical conversation for parents and children living in the hospital. Patients come from all over the world and can feel very isolated. The request was handed to London so in January 2004 we set up a project called “the 3C’s” (coffee cake and chat). Every Tuesday three M.U. Members,( a team leader plus two others) arrive at the Hospital by 10.15am set up chairs and table outside the Chapel. Prayers are offered in the Chapel every morning at 10.30am, including those written in the book within the last 24 hours. Very often these are in a language we do not understand and are offered to The Lord with the words “you Lord will understand”
 
Then we wait to welcome parents and sometimes children who are well enough to leave the ward. Most weeks there are parents from all over the U.K. and Ireland and from many countries as GOSH is the world specialist in all types of Children’s Cancer. We have meet parents from Israel, Russia, Germany, Spain, and those parents who do not speak English are always supported by an interrupter. Parents can be at the hospital with their children for months at a time.
 
When a child is having an operation, parents who have sat with their child for hours, days ,weeks are completely lost as there is nothing they can do but wait. The coffee morning then becomes a life line,  One Mother  waiting for her husband to arrive as she knew that the doctors could do no more and were going to tell them that all medical treatment was to be withdrawn from  their five day old son, suddenly  rushed down to the Chapel, saying I have just realised it is Tuesday! She sat with us,  we lit a candle and prayed, their son died two days later. She wrote the most moving letter to the Ladies at the Coffee Morning.  There are times when we see very few or no parents at all, the Mothers’ Union are there when needed.

Parents will return on the Anniversary of their child’s death to see the name in the Memorial book and to light a candle.

 
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