‘They’re so brave’: A baby buddy shares her experience – and her joy

Peta has always had an admiration for the way the human body works. She studied sports science at university in Australia, her home country, and worked in professional sports, including 15 years in the Premier League. “There’s no man-made thing that is more complicated and fascinating than the body,” she says.

This love of science is one thing that drew her to GOSH, where she volunteers as both a guide and a baby buddy. But the biggest driver is her goddaughter, who was in hospital for much of the first three years of her life. “I saw just how hard it was for the family, the kids, their network,” Peta says. “But I remember looking at the staff there thinking, gosh, you helped so much.”

As a GOSH guide, Peta offers a warm welcome to patients and their families when they arrive at the hospital, taking them where they need to go. Her second role, as a baby buddy on Chameleon ward, is about providing nurturing care to babies and children who are having specialist neonatal and paediatric surgery. Both roles are part of the volunteering service at GOSH, which is funded by Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity (GOSH Charity) and includes around 600 volunteers.

“Great Ormond Street Hospital provides a secure space,” Peta says. “For children, that's so important, just feeling really safe and secure and that you've got people who you can trust, who are always on your side.”

Baby buddies at GOSH are trained to help support the hospital’s youngest patients. They give snuggles, read stories, play and sing, helping to lower a baby’s stress levels by holding and rocking them.

“I look at them with total adoration,” Peta says. “I think they’re remarkable and so brave. These little babies seem to take everything in their stride and just roll with it and cope.”

Peta also plays with patients who are a bit older; one day, she’s cuddling a five-day-old and the next, she’s making a two-year-old laugh. It’s all about fun, she says, from pushing cars around a playroom to getting hands dirty while colouring.

“The highlight of my day is making a sick child genuinely smile,” Peta says. “Those little moments where I can bring a bit of joy are really nice.”

On Chameleon ward, Peta works closely with the nurses and the Play team, another service funded by GOSH Charity. She has nothing but praise for the people who make the hospital run, and she says she’s learnt a lot through her time at GOSH.

“You’ve got to very quickly try and assess people to find out what their little interest points are or what's going to shift their dial for the day. What might work with one child won't work with another,” she says.

One patient who has really stuck with Peta is baby Ellie, pictured above, who arrived at GOSH when she was a few months old. Peta visited her every week and watched her grow. Towards the end of her stay, Ellie started to recognise people in the hospital. “I'd walk in, and she’d really smile,” Peta says. And when Ellie and her parents left, Peta walked them to their car. “It was actually quite emotional,” she adds.

And Peta wants to take on more at the hospital. In addition to her other roles, she’s also a member of the GOSH Charity Research Patient Insight Panel, which helps to assess grant applications for groundbreaking studies. Those studies have the potential to save even more lives and even more childhoods through research-led care.

Volunteering at GOSH is one of the best jobs she’s had, Peta says. “It’d be the last thing I'd stop doing.”

At GOSH Charity, we stop at nothing to help give seriously ill children the best chance and the best childhood possible. Find out more about our work and the people we support.