Our heart-warming story of Covid survivor and young mum Ellie Wright who was able to touch her baby Leo for the first time when he was brought in his incubator up to our Critical Care Unit has been seen far and wide.

Leo’s mum contracted Covid-19 when she was 30 weeks pregnant and couldn’t start life-saving treatment until her baby had been delivered. Leo was born by emergency caesarean, 10 weeks premature at 3.07pm on 12 January, and needed to be on a ventilator in Walsall Manor Hospital’s Neonatal Unit.

Meanwhile 20-year-old Ellie, of Beechdale, was fighting the virus and pneumonia and was seriously ill in the hospital’s Critical Care Unit. She is now making progress but still has a long road to recovery ahead of her.

Our fantastic Critical Care staff were recognised for all their support and dedication, and rightly so, but Walsall Healthcare is also proud of staff in our Neonatal Unit who cared for Leo until he was able to go home to his nan Michelle Stankevitch last week.

Staff Nurse Deb Walker said: “It was lovely to see the coverage of Ellie and Leo’s story. We really wanted them to meet, appreciating how difficult things were, and were really supportive to make it happen.”

Staff Nurse Charlotte Dunn has been keeping a diary for Ellie to be able to look back on Leo’s milestones and progress when she is feeling better.

“It’s really nice to see that her health is improving and we’ve been keeping a diary for her so she can catch up when she’s able to.”

Trainee Nurse Associate Amy Darby spent quite a lot of time looking after Leo when he was in the unit.

She added: “I was here the day that Leo went up to see his mum and it was so emotional. Mum was really happy. And when I saw him on TV and saw how he’d grown that was lovely too.”