The Sergeant Family - Auckland

The Sergeants are a family of five hailing from Waiuku, just south of Auckland. They have three children: 12-year-old Lindon, 11-year-old Honour, and Joshua, eight. When Honour was just five years old, she was diagnosed with “end-stage kidney failure”, and their medical journey began.

Thankfully, mum Andrea was able to donate a kidney to Honour a few months later, but to keep her kidney healthy it called for Honour to take immunosuppressants. Five years after the transplant, this meant that when Honour contracted a virus, her system was unable to fight it off and it led to a brain infection. “On Waitangi Day, Honour had to have emergency brain surgery to give room for her brain to swell and to relieve pressure,” Andrea says, “she then needed to stay in Neurology's Intensive Observation Area (IOA).” There are no beds for parents to stay in the IOA, so RMHC NZ offered the Family Room service for the family to sleep near the ward.

The Ronald McDonald Family Room in Auckland offers dedicated play areas for siblings, patients and family visitors with snacks, tea and coffee provided throughout the day. There are 13 short stay beds for caregivers of critically ill children when it‘s imperative they remain just moments away from their hospitalised child.

Mum Andrea explains that “medical parenting is a total roller coaster. We’ve been on this journey for over five years now and are constantly in and out of hospital – it’s exhausting.”

“Having people who deeply understand how difficult this lifestyle is can be extremely stress relieving. The staff at RMHC understand that meeting basic needs such as bedding and food means that we can focus solely on our child and their healing.”

Without the Family Room, the family would have had to stay off-site and away from Honour during a really scary time. “Sometimes the nurses would call at 3am saying that Honour needed her mum,” Andrea explains, “I could pop up to the ward to settle her then return straight back to the Family Room to sleep. This type of support is priceless in a crisis situation.”

During the five years back and forth between home and the hospital, the family have utilised the lounge and services of the Family Room as it is the “one place that offers a quiet, peaceful area to wait for Honour’s surgeries to finish and appointments to start.” They have utilised the service for over five years now, whenever Honour has surgery and other treatments such as biopsies and lumbar punctures.

Andrea says that the family are extremely grateful for the service; “we are so grateful to the work you do to make the hospital feel more like home.”