By By Lindsey Hume, 19th January 2012, 17:00, Heart 96.6fm
The family and friends of Bailey Sarwa are fundraising to try to
pay for medical care abroad not offered in the UK.
12 year old Bailey suffers from a rare form of cancer,
neuroblastoma, which affects the nerve cells. He recently suffered
a relapse after having nearly seven years in remission.
He's currently undergoing chemotherapy at Great Ormond Street
Hospital but isn't able to have an antibody treatment there that is
available in Germany and the US, so an appeal has now been launched
to try to get him this treatment.
His Mum Becki Jones feels he deserves this treatment, which she
thought he would get in February but isn't being offered to
relapsed children. When they found this out she said they were
'just gutted, we're gutted anyway that we had to go through all
this again.
'This time with Bailey being older it's much harder because
he understands much more, but he's got the fight there, we know
what we're facing, we know that we've got to be strong.'
Bailey has been in and out of hospital since the age of 4. He
told Heart: 'I just hate it, it's like going somewhere for five
days and then coming back for two weeks. It feels like it's going
on forever and I don't know when I'm going to finish the
chemotherapy.'
Great Ormand Street Hospital said that they couldn't comment on
individual cases but Dr Penelope Brock, a consultant paediatric
oncologist there said: 'There is an urgent need for the
clinical and research community to develop new treatments to
improve outcomes in these very sick children, and this is something
we are working hard on with our colleagues across Europe.
'No clinical trial for any disease is available in every
country. Unfortunately this does mean some patients cannot gain
access to trials in their home country as there is none taking
place that they are able to take part in. This can be extremely
distressing for families and explains why some may choose to
explore treatment options abroad.'
The family is being back Families Against Neuroblastoma (FAN)
through Bmycharity.
You can donate money at www.bmycharity.com/BaileySarwaAppeal