A 92-year-old stroke victim's will has left a lasting legacy to Burton's Queen's Hospital
Thora Smith has helped future patients at Burton’s Queen’s Hospital after £53,000 from her estate was donated to the specialist unit.
Her neighbours, who were ‘like the children she never had’, were tasked with making sure the money was being put to use.
Reporter JOHN CROSSLEY met with them and hospital staff to find out about the lifesaving difference it was making.
IT is staggering how one act of kindness can have such a huge impact. Thora Smith has left a lasting legacy at the stroke unit at Burton’s Queen’s Hospital after £53,000 from her estate has been used to haul stroke treatment into the 21st century.
Cutting edge technology was installed last year and has so far helped hundreds of patients recover from the life-threatening effects of stroke.
Mrs Smith died, aged 92, in November 2009 after she suffered a stroke.
Executors of her will, husband and wife David and Margaret Styler — known as Betty — lived in the house next door in Rosliston Road, Stapenhill for 21 years.
The couple were given a tour of Ward 8 to see how the cash was being put to use.
Stroke consultant Dr Bhaskar Mukherjee said: “I’m sure we would have waited for years to get this equipment from the NHS.
“These are new machines and you don’t see these other than in much bigger hospitals.
“Without the donation we would not have got this kit. Treatment for strokes is moving forward but in the modern NHS you do not have the funding available.
“Stroke is not an ‘old age’ thing — that is actually a bit of a myth.
“We are seeing more and more young people suffering with strokes. I think it is because people are drinking too much and smoking too much.
“This equipment will be brilliant for helping out younger patients who have suffered a stroke.”
Mrs Smith’s parting gift will go a long way to helping future generations in Burton and the surrounding area.
Her neighbours, retired engineer David Styler, 69, and his wife Margaret, 62, said they felt like they were ‘the children she never had’.
“She will be extremely happy that people will be getting some good as a result of the money,” said Mr Styler.
“It’s a typical situation where she would do someone some good.
“She was not the sort of person to brag about anything, and I think if she were alive she would have given the money anonymously.”
The cash injection allowed the hospital’s lead stroke nurse Pete Tari to draw up a ‘shopping list’ of equipment that he thought the unit needed.
It has meant improvements across the board, including speech therapy, physiotherapy and day-to-day care.
“It makes a huge difference having this here,” he said. “The earlier you can intervene with a stroke the better the eventual outcome for the patient.
“We wanted to get the stuff that we knew would help our work on a day-today basis.
“This has been so important for us and every therapy has benefited.” Mr and Mrs Styler moved to Rosliston Road, Stapenhill, in 1988, and they struck up an instant friendship with Thora and her husband Fred, who was a postmaster in Tutbury Road.
Tragedy struck in 2000 when Mr Smith died of a stroke. The Stylers continued to look after Mrs Smith as she grew older and started to show the early signs of dementia.
A few years later she had to be taken into care before dying in 2009.
As executors of her will, the couple were left with the duty of making sure her estate was equally divided between five good causes — including the hospital.
The Air Ambulance, RSPCA, PDSA and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution all benefited from the estate.
“She said that she wanted the money to go to Queen’s Hospital but it was up to us to decide where it would be spent,” said Mrs Styler.
“We wanted it to go to the stroke unit because that was how she died. I think she will be extremely pleased about how the money has been used.”
Mr Styler remembered: “There was this instant bond when we moved in next door. I think that we were like the children they never had.”
“At times it was like we lived in one house together and she even had a grand plan to join the two homes together.
“I don’t think she ever had a bad word to say about anyone in the 21 years that we knew her.”
The donation marked a further step forward for stroke treatment at Queen’s after it moved its acute and rehabilitation departments under one roof last year.
The money has given the department extra momentum as it pushes forward to improve its care for patients.
From next month the ward’s thrombolysis service will be running seven days a week — rather than the current Monday to Friday.
This will mean people who have suffered a stroke will have greater access to the lifesaving drugs that can help break down blood clots.
Mr Tari said: “The extension to include weekend cover is in line with national policy and will significantly improve services for patients who need to be thrombolysed over the weekend.
“We have teams of staff available to provide the treatment and in terms of our patients it means they will benefit from being treated locally.”
“Outside of these times, patients who need thrombolysis treatment will be taken to hospital in either Derby or Stoke-on-Trent,” Mr Tari added.
“They still receive an excellent service but we are aware it causes additional stress to both them and their families if they are taken out of the area and then transferred back to us.
“We hope the extended hours will go some way towards relieving some of this anxiety.
“We hope to build on the service as we make further developments to our integrated stroke unit.” Eventually it is hoped the service will be extended to 24 hours a day with the hospital utilising the latest in digital technology.
Doctors will be able to treat patients in their own homes — giving the best diagnosis as quickly as possible and increasing their chances of recovery.
