A former teacher who makes activities for the children she looks after has been made nurse of the year at Evelina London.
Atinuke ‘Tinu’ Ademefun, a senior staff nurse at the children’s hospital in Waterloo, works with children who are on the waiting list for a new kidney. The children come in three or four times a week for dialysis to clean their blood, while they are waiting for a donor.
Sadly, children can be left waiting several years for a new kidney, although it can be a matter of months. But that means Tinu and her colleagues get a chance to get to know the children.
A former primary teacher Tinu said: “I do lots of activities with the children, so we can get to know them.”
Some of the children have to have needles put in them for a special kind of treatment, which understandably makes them nervous.
Tinu added: “They can be very anxious to have two needles stuck in them for the duration of the treatment. I just like to find a way to relieve their anxiety. We do have a good rapport with the children.”
Tinu, who lives in the Elephant and Castle area, was born herself in Evelina London, and she also gave birth to her son, now 26, in the hospital.
After teaching at Surrey Square primary school in Walworth, she retrained as a nurse, qualifying in 2007. She worked as a general paediatric nurse and in intensive care, before moving to Beach ward, where she is now.
Asked if she finds it difficult working with sick children, she said: “It’s not too hard… Some children are born with kidney issues, that’s the life they know, they acclimatise to it. It’s not as harrowing as one would expect. But it impacts on their families. It does have an impact on their education and family life, so we try to help there too.”
Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS trust gives out the nursing and midwifery awards to recognise the hard work of its staff each year.