Their smiling faces tell a happy story – but the ending could have been very different without York Hospital’s new £300,000 Guardian Angels children’s unit, which has just celebrated its first birthday.

Cousins Darcey McBride and Samuel Giannini, who were both treated at York Hospital’s Guardian Angels children’s unit Cousins Darcey McBride and Samuel Giannini, who were both treated at York Hospital’s Guardian Angels children’s unit

Doctors did not think Darcey, of South Bank, York, would survive when she was admitted to the new high-dependency unit as a 15-month-old toddler in April.

An infection in an hemangioma (birth mark) on her arm had spread through her whole body and her organs had started to shut down.

Darcey’s condition was so serious she was later transferred to St James's Hospital in Leeds, but her aunt, Victoria Giannini, said the plucky youngster would not be here today without the initial care she received in the Guardian Angels unit.

“The Guardian Angels room kept her alive up until the point they transferred her,” said Victoria, 38, of Clifton. “She was really, really poorly and they didn’t know if she was going to make it.”

Two weeks ago, Victoria suffered another shock when her 13-month-old son, Samuel, developed extreme breathing difficulties due to a chest infection and had to be rushed to York Hospital. “It was life-threatening,” she said. “They said if we had left him another hour it would have been a very different story.

“We’re just so grateful they had the facilities in York to treat him, because if he had to be transferred to Leeds, he would have been transferred as a much sicker boy than he was.”

Victoria, who worked as a business development manager before taking maternity leave, said she was eternally grateful to everybody who contributed to our Guardian Angels Appeal.

“It is a brilliant facility and we are extremely thankful to the people who raised money to fund it,” she said.

“It’s a nice, spacious room with a lovely mural on the wall and if feels very homely even though it’s got all the bells and whistles.

“The staff were brilliant as well, and I really can’t say enough in their praise.”



Samuel Giannini and his cousin, Darcey McBride, are living proof that every penny donated to The Press’s three-year Guardian Angels Appeal was worth it.

Photo and story by kind permission of The Press.