Inseparable Sisters BBC

[Ikeatears]

I've just watched this. What a fabulous dad the girls' father is and what an amazing school.

Just posted about this in AIBU (faith in humanity restored).

Watched it through tears. What courage and commitment!

Now there is a man who has stepped up to the challenge and then some.

Amazing and wonderful to see the people around the girls working with the utmost dedication, and learning as they go to support them in having as normal a life as they can have.

Best thing I have seen on TV for a good while. Well done the makers of the film, it's a story worth watching.

I watched it too. As a primary school teacher I can imagine how intimidating it must have been for the staff at first, not knowing what their needs would be, but they seem to include the girls so well. Their 1:1 staff in particular seemed fabulous.

Dad was so gentle and articulate about what must have been some enormously challenging times.

I sobbed at the end when he thanked everyone for their support. He's lost everything - his country, his home, his career, his marriage, his other children. Everything except his wonderful girls and there isn't a hint of resentment or bitterness. Just gratitude and love and ambition to provide the best future he can for the girls.

It was so heart warming that the family has been so tightly embraced by their community. What an amazing man. I did wonder why his wife and other children aren’t here. It didn’t say but unless the girls Mum rejected them, it’s so hard to think of them all not being together to share this precious time with Marieme and Nyde as a family. The medics, teachers, school friends, carers are brilliant. And the university making bespoke outfits. It was a real antidote to sheer brutality going on all around us, that there are people like these around us too.

Really curious as to how often the mum and other children come over (if at all)
Or if they ever go back home.
It sounds like he had a really good job back home that he lost through all this. Must have been hard as well
I'm guessing he might not have a job now? (Just thinking he might be carer to the girls but don't know)

I was also very moved by this programme. However, an uncharitable thought did cross my mind and that was about the costs involved and who is paying?

Currently I’m on the NHS waiting list for an operation, with no date in sight. My DH attends a clinic for a serious, ongoing, incurable condition. He’s just been informed that the clinic is closing for the time being due to lack of funding.

It is virtually impossible to get a GP appointment where we live.

Services are being cut as our local council have run out of money.

Our roads are positively dangerous due to potholes.

Our schools are crumbling and understaffed.

I'm not sure what you mean?
They're NHS patients like any other NHS patients

You can only be an NHS patient once you have worked in the UK and contributed enough.

The girl’s have two assistants looking after them at school and two carers at home. I don’t think dad can work, so all their living costs are paid for.

Originally they came from Senegal to see if Great Ormond Street could separate them but then settled in Cardiff.

Oh right so I don't understand then?

Yes... but they are children. We put children first. Regardless of where they are from or if their parents have paid taxes.

Tell that to the unaccompanied child migrants locked up waiting for their cases to be assessed.

Or the 1000s of children being brought up in bandbs with addicts and god knows what going on in their 'home".

I don't think we do really put children first generally. That family has been very lucky (or one half of it has).

Our local council have had to make cuts in services, including social care for children and families. There just isn’t enough money to go round anymore and it’s heartbreaking.

I also think this particular family are incredibly lucky with the care package they are receiving.

Mind you the dad did say social services have now sort out some respite for me.
I thought it implied that they'd done it relatively recently so it might have years coming.

But I agree overall it seemed like they had good support

I thought that too.

They came here to potentially be separated. When it became apparent they couldn't be successfully, why didn't they go back to Senegal? At least there they would have a mum and siblings.

I presume the care that GOSH can give is better than at their home?

@Manyandyoucanwalkover what a horrible response.
I have stage 4 cancer and am also in chronic pain from disability and await a variety of services and surgeries but my reaction in watching this programme was pleasure that this family is getting help not jealousy and blame that they have come here from Senegal to use “our” nhs and social services.
Where someone is born in the world is pure luck and I want to be part of a country that helps whenever we can, not a country who turns away children in a most unique health predicament.
I also thought their dad was fantastic and should be an example to the many useless gits that flourish as sperm providers.

Yes I guess so.

Still can understand Manyandyoucanwalkover
Post. I lost my husband through lack of nhs funding.

From the medical records and scans the Dad sent them, GOSH thought there was a chance they could be separated, so offered to help. After more tests and scans it became clear that Marieme’s heart was too weak to survive surgery and also that Ndeye, despite having better heart function, was still reliant on her sister’s heart and likely might not survive surgery either. The Dad said be couldn’t choose which child to give the chance of life to . Which is totally understandable.

GOSH is probably the only hospital in the world that has the expertise to keep the girls as stable as possible, and even their paediatrician said she’d never come across a case like theirs and was learning along the way. If they’d gone back to Senegal, they’d likely have had a terrible and miserable quality of whatever life they have left.

im in rubbish health and on a seemingly endless waiting list for procedures that would improve my quality of life . But whatever dire state the NHS is in, I can’t begrudge these children receiving care at probably the only place that is able to provide it for them. This is a unique case.

Thanks for posting about this OP- I would never have watched but wow, what an incredible story and what an amazing man. So eloquent, calm, kind.

The problem is that our country does not have enough money to look after everyone. This family are incredibly lucky to have all that support. Unfortunately other people living in the UK are not so lucky.

That is the reality of the situation. In an ideal world everyone would be cared for but it’s not happening. I don’t believe my response is horrible at all. I’m just commenting on the unfairness of how resources are allocated.

Resources in the NHS are stretched for many reasons other 'just' immigration. Ironically, better health care has partly caused the crisis due to higher life expectancy, chronic government underfunding, poor management of services and resources for many, many years, lots and lots of reasons.
These little girls and their father are the least threat to your waiting list than many, many of the other factors.
And even if they weren't, I'm happy to have them here. They clearly are well loved and valuable to their community.