The charity WES has chosen to receive the proceeds of all sales of the WES Charity Calendar 2025 is Birmingham Children’s Hospital Charity (BCHC).
Birmingham Children’s Hospital is a leading specialist paediatric centre, offering expert care to over 100,000 children and young people from across the country every year. Its incredible teams deliver some of the most advanced treatments, complex surgical procedures and cutting-edge research and developments to some of the UK’s sickest kids.
Every patient and family at Birmingham Children’s Hospital will have benefitted by the hospital’s charity in some way. As a result, it continually strives to do more for the brave patients in its care, whether that’s a newly refurbished playroom or ward, a state-of-the-art piece of equipment or even a toy at Christmas.
The reason for selecting Birmingham Children’s Hospital Charity as this years beneficiary is down to a very special young lady, Bella-Rose Quirke. Bella-Rose is the granddaughter of WES Treasurer, Nigel Simpson-Stern and we are delighted to support Bella-Rose and all the other children who are benefitting from the services of the BCH and BCHC.
This is Bella-Rose’s story…
Bella-Rose was born 10 weeks prematurely following a bleed on her brain, weighing just 2lbs 10oz. She spent several weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit at Northampton General Hospital before being transferred to the special care baby unit at Warwick Hospital. During this time, she also had consultation with the neurology department at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. A traumatic time for her parents and family, with Bella-Rose undergoing numerous tests, scans and treatment throughout her early life.
Bella-Rose was born with complex syndactyly of the hands (a condition arising from malformation of the hands inside the womb) together with neurological migration disorder and strabismus.
She has been under the expert care of Birmingham Children’s Hospital since birth and has endured several surgical operations throughout her childhood. Birmingham Children’s Hospital have been fantastic in not only supporting Bella-Rose’s surgical needs but also in building her self-confidence and resilience by involving her in fashion shows and collective gatherings for children with similar disabilities.
Now 7 years old, Bella-Rose has a long and unpredictable path ahead but she has grown into a confident, independent young lady, determined not to let anything hold her back. She uses adaptive writing equipment to practice her cursive writing and loves to write creative stories about princesses, unicorns and rainbows.
Undoubtedly, Birmingham Children’s Hospital coupled with her own positive attitude, have enabled her to exceed the expectations of her doctors and excel in everything she puts her mind to. Bella-Roses family are forever grateful to the tremendous team at Birmingham Children’s Hospital who really do go above and beyond for all the children in their care.
For more information on Birmingham Children’s Hospital Charity, please visit bch.org.uk.
