Video: Notts Tonight’s Hugh Casswell visits the new support centre
Parents who suffer the loss of a pregnancy, baby or child will soon have a special support centre at Nottingham City Hospital thanks to the dedication of a bereaved local family.
The centre – named Zephyr’s after the couple’s son who was stillborn at the hospital in 2013 – is due to open on Saturday (April 1).
Carly Williams and Martin Sommerville, from St Ann’s, raised £20,000 through Nottingham Hospitals Charity and worked with other families, hospital staff and volunteers to transform a former apartment at the City Hospital into Zephyr’s.
Families will be able to access counselling and peer support away from the maternity wards at the centre.
Carly said: “We set up Zephyr’s in our son’s name to create a better place for families and staff to come together in compassionate surroundings, to find strength to talk openly about our children and grief and be in the company of others who understand.
“It is wonderful to see that dream now become reality.”
After their loss the couple went on to have another boy in 2015 – Sol Sommerville-Williams – who is now 18 months old.
Video: Carly and Martin, with their son Sol, spoke to Notts TV in October
She added: “Pregnancy loss is a bleak and tough subject, and when it hits, it strikes hard, leaving behind an isolating and very lonely kind of parenthood to try to navigate.
“When our baby boy Zephyr died we set out on a very different path to the one we’d spent nine months imagining.
“Midwives and hospital staff did their best to ease our broken hearts, but the surroundings felt so wrong. I didn’t feel comfort within the walls of the maternity building where a busywaiting room bustled with expecting couples.
“I desperately needed counselling but going back to the ward was too tough to handle. For us, and for many parents we’ve met since, that was the last place we wanted to be.”
The couple’s eventual aim is to build a new seperate centre within the hospital grounds, but until then, they are opening Zephyr’s in the refurbished unit at the City Hospital’s Derwent flats.
On Saturday Zephyr’s is holding a Family Day from noon until 4pm so families can view the facilities, take part in arts activities, meet the staff and families and learn about the project’s future plans.
Anyone affected by stillbirth, child bereavement or pregnancy loss is invited.
Jackie Browne, child bereavement facilitator at Nottingham University Hospitals Trust, said: “It is wonderful to see Zephyr’s open its doors to bereaved families. It will hopefully become known as a place that doesn’t forget, that allows, encourages and helps families as they carry on with life to include and remember their cherished babies and children.”
Nottingham Hospitals Charity chief executive Barbara Cathcart says: “Zephyr’s shows what can be done when people work with our Charity to make their dream project become reality.
“Carly and Martin came to us with an idea and it is wonderful to see this now taking shape. Zephyr’s promises to be a place of compassion where families can receive much-needed support to help them recover from the heartbreak of child bereavement or stillbirth.”
The couple’s inspiring efforts follow those of Richard and Michelle Daniels – another bereaved couple who set up the charity Forever Stars and opened a similar unit at the Queen’s Medical Centre in April 2016
