E-mails help boost patients' spirits

Jane Elliott
BBC News Online health staff

Emails kept Gill in touch with home

For four months Gill Dixon was confined to her hospital bed.

But an innovative scheme kept her in touch with the outside world and, in particular, her toddler son.

Gill was admitted to the Royal Liverpool Hospital with ulcerative colitis, which leads to ulcers developing in the large intestine.

She suffered complications and needed part of her small bowel removed after suffering gangrene.

Delivery

And, apart from a few brief trips home, she spent the rest of the time in hospital.

So its e-mail system was one of best ways of her keeping in touch with family, friends and work colleagues.

It does keep you in touch with the rest of the world Gill Dixon

E-mails are not normally available to in-patients, who seldom have access to computers.

But at the Liverpool hospital volunteer staff download their special emails about three times a day and then deliver them to patients.

Gill said the system had helped her tremendously.

"My husband Neil sent me a couple of emails every day.

"He let me know how my son Joseph is doing, what he had been eating and how he had been sleeping and what he was up to during the day.

"When you are in hospital for as long as this you tend to lose touch with reality and this really helped cheer me up.

"Neil forwarded the address to colleagues where we worked and some days I would get up to 15 emails.

"I used to feel sorry for the poor staff delivering them, but they always did so with a smile on their faces.

"I have found it a wonderful service.

Emails are delivered regularly

"It does keep you in touch with the rest of the world.

"I have kept all the emails. It is good to know there are so many people keeping in touch."

Volunteers

Another patient agreed that it had been an invaluable way to keep in touch with friends and relatives, particularly if they were in hospital abroad.

"It has been so nice to be able to send greetings to friends who have recently undergone surgical procedures at Broadgreen.

"What a wonderful service. We don't have such a service in our hospitals in Canada."

Doreen Ryan, who works as the Volunteers Services Co-ordinator at the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen NHS Trust, said the system they run , which has been praised by health minister John Hutton, had proved very popular with patients.

"We have had e-mails coming from all over the world.

"When Gerard Houlier, the Liverpool Football Club manager, was in here we had about 50 emails a day.

"That was one of our busiest times."

She said that the hospital e-mail system, which produces the messages on glossy cards, only runs weekdays.