THE National Health Service was born 75 years ago next week.
To mark the birthday, The Sun has tracked down three of the estimated 1,700 babies who came into the world that day on Monday, July 5, 1948.
HandoutAneurin Bevan, second left, helped found the NHS which is now set to celebrate it’s 75th birthday[/caption]
An estimated 1,700 babies were born in hospitals on the day the NHS launched 75 years ago[/caption]
In a country that still had postwar rationing, any mother who gave birth the day before would have had to pay the midwife.
But from July 5, births were free.
Here, these earliest children of the NHS – who turn 75 on Wednesday – talk to Mike Ridley about how our cradle-to-grave health service has saved the lives of them and their loved ones down the years.
‘I was first ever NHS baby and I’m named after its founder’
Aneira Thomas: Born 12:01am, July 5, 1948 Ammanford, South Wales
Marc GiddingsAneira Thomas says she took her first breath under the NHS and hopes it is still around when she takes her last[/caption]
Marc GiddingsAneira says her mum Edna was asked to hold off her birth until midnight when the NHS launched[/caption]
SHE was the very first baby to be born under the NHS, and Aneira says the health service has since saved her life AND brought her two children back from the brink of death.
Named after NHS founder Aneurin Bevan, Aneira came into the world just after midnight after a midwife urged her mum Edna to hold on until after the clock struck.
The mum of two suffers from anaphylaxis, a life-threatening allergic reaction that can cause her to collapse and stop breathing.
At her home in Loughor, near Swansea, she says: “At first it was triggered by medication like codeine and paracetamol but now I’ve developed an allergy to peanuts.
“The last episode I had was in B&Q up the road. After walking around feeling clammy I collapsed on the concrete.
“All I had eaten was two little peanuts. I had a feeling of doom, it was horrible until they took me into resus and gave me adrenaline.
“The care was exceptional. As soon as I was in the care of the NHS I felt safe.”
The great-grandmother, known as Nye like NHS founder of the NHS Aneurin, never goes anywhere without an EpiPen, which can be used to combat an allergic reaction.
In an extremely rare turn of events, both her children, Kevin and Lindsay, an NHS paramedic, suffered brain haemorrhages in their thirties.
But they survived thanks to the care they were given.
Aneira recalls: “In 2007 when Kevin was 38, he borrowed my car one night and I had a phone call from him saying, “I’m in the Royal Glamorgan Hospital, I’ve had a bleed on the brain’.
“Then, eight years later, Lindsay had the same thing. The surgeon who saved her said it was very uncommon to have two siblings suffer brain haemorrhages.
“She was in a coma for 28 days. I spent all that time on my knees praying, ‘Please, please bring her back to me’.
“I’d be at her bedside looking at the machines and I could see her temperature going up.
“A nurse said to me, ‘Go and have a cup of tea, Nye’. I remember a nurse coming down to the cafe to find me, saying, ‘Don’t worry, it’s come back down’.
“They were all fantastic, the level of care was just outstanding, from the surgeons to the nurses, the porters, cleaners and tea ladies. Neither of my children would be here now without the NHS.”
It wasn’t the only time Lindsay’s life was saved by the NHS. She had to undergo an emergency Caesarean giving birth to her youngest child Caitlin. The op saved both Lindsay and her baby girl.
Mum-of-three Lindsay, 49, also of Loughor, is back fighting fit and has won four awards for her work as a paramedic with the Welsh NHS.
Aneira’s husband Dennis, a steelworker, died of cancer aged 61 in 2007.
He had been under the care of the NHS after suffering a stroke in his local pub 18 months earlier.
Retired mental health nurse Aneira says: “I’m very proud of being the first NHS baby. I tell everyone, I shout it from the rooftops.
“The formation of the NHS was a turning point in history. It was revolutionary and is still the envy of the world.
“There is still room for improvement and we all know it’s creaking at the seams at the moment. But health is our wealth.
“The real experts are the doctors, nurses and paramedics who give primary care. They should be making the big decisions – they know what’s going on.”
Aneira, who will spend her birthday at Westminster Abbey celebrating the NHS’s 75th anniversary, adds: “The NHS was there when I took my first breath and, please God, it will be there when I take my last.”
‘Friends joked Dad wanted free birth’
Dr Keith Hine: Born 12:01am, July 5, 1948 Ammanford, South Wales
Dr Keith Hine with wife Maralyn and daughter Katie (left)Chris Balcombe
SuppliedKeith, right, knew from a young age he wanted to work for the NHS[/caption]
BEING two weeks overdue meant Keith arrived into a National Health Service that was just hours old.
And from the age of seven he was determined to serve the NHS by becoming a doctor himself.
He went on to achieve that dream and had a 35-year career in hospitals across the country as a physician and gastroenterologist, only retiring from clinical work eight years ago.
Keith says: “My dad Frank was an accountant and there was a fee to be paid to the midwife, which was abolished after the NHS came into being.
“Dad’s friends always joked with him that he asked my mum Joyce to hold on until it started so they could avoid the midwife’s fee.”
Keith became a medic in 1973 and was at work, or on call, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in both Birmingham General Hospital and Warwick Hospital.
He says: “You just lived in the hospital throughout the year.
“On some wards like A&E and Coronary Care, there were side rooms for the doctor to catch a few winks of sleep at night while being immediately available for emergencies.
“You saw so many patients and you learned so much so quickly. I worked out I did 40,000 hours to become a consultant.”
Those phenomenal hours gave Keith “an intuition” that over the years helped saved lives.
He says: “I’ve had plenty of occasions with patients where I’ve just had a feeling something isn’t right.
“The charts and tests have all been reading normally but you get a sixth sense with that much exposure to patients and I’ve rarely been wrong.”
In 1971, Keith met and fell in love with Maralyn, a medical secretary, who became his wife of 49 years.
The couple had three children, Abigail, Katie and Cherith.
Katie needed years of NHS treatment herself after being born with congenital hip dislocation.
She was in splints and casts for 22 months to realign her hips and eventually needed surgery.
Maralyn, 72, says: “Katie didn’t sit, crawl or walk until she was 22 months but then went from strength to strength and won her first sports day running race when she was four.
She hasn’t been left with any long-term issues either. Her care was brilliant.”
Inspired by her dad, Katie, 43, went into nursing and is working with the NHS today.
She says: “I love my job, it’s not always easy but it’s an honour to be able to be there for patients.
“That’s something I learned from Dad – I don’t think I’d be the nurse I am without him.”
‘Son’s surgeon will always be my hero’
Teresa Howison: Born 1pm July 5, 1948, Edinburgh
Tom FarmerGrateful Teresa and son Christopher can’t thank the NHS enough[/caption]
TERESA was the first baby born in Scotland on July 5 and she has relied on the NHS’s medical heroes ever since.
Her parents Czeslaw and Gladys Komorowski were proud to be guinea pigs for what would become Britain’s most cherished institution.
Teresa, from Edinburgh, is married to John, 76, and has four children and 13 grandchildren.
And her biggest reason for treasuring the NHS is the care her son Christopher, 39, has received, including ten operations to fix a kidney condition.
She says: “Christopher had a congenital abnormality of the ureters which damaged both of his kidneys.
“When he was ill, I tried to see if we could go down the private route to speed up the process.
“But we were told it would bankrupt us because of the level of care he required.
“Without the NHS, there’s no way we could have ever been able to afford the attention and expertise he needed.
“I was outside the theatre with Christopher every time and there was a doctor who was the only one who could perform the operation at this time.
“And for the final five operations, he was there for all of them. The first of them took over ten hours and the doctor will always be a hero to our family.”
Dad-of-three Christopher, who works in finance, needed the health service again when his wife Audrey was eight months pregnant and got an infection which meant she needed a caesarean. Mother and baby both recovered.
Christopher says: “At every stage in my life the NHS has been there for me and my family, allowing us to worry about and make decisions based on health alone. The NHS is wonderful.”
Teresa also remembers how much her mum and dad cherished a grant they received to help give their baby the best possible start in life.
Her due date had actually been July 4, so the extra wait for her mum ended up benefiting the whole family.
She adds: “You got a grant at birth and that made a huge difference. I believe it was around £25 – which went a long way.
“It was quite a spectacular amount to receive at that point in time.”
Teresa, whose other children are John Michael, 45, Elizabeth, 43, and Felicity, 36, says: “I think it’s very important that healthcare is available for all free or charge.
“If you don’t have the NHS, there are people who won’t survive.”
Teresa, pictured as a toddler, says it is important healthcare is made free for allSupplied Read More