A TWO-year-old awaiting a kidney transplant has helped raise £500 for the charity that kept his family together during treatment at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI).

Georgie Haycock, from Billingham, on Teesside, spent the first two weeks of his life in intensive care after undergoing major surgery at just one day old.

He was born with a complex bladder condition, obstructive uropathy, where his bladder was blocked from passing urine, causing it to back up into his kidneys which made them swollen.

Georgie was moved from intensive care into the renal ward for another six weeks - and could not go home until he was eight weeks old.

His mother, Lauren McKenzie, and father George Haycock were able to stay free of charge in a room in The Sick Children's Trust's special facility, Crawford House at the RVI.

It meant that the couple could stay close to Georgie while he recovered from the major surgery and stay together as a family - something which the charity believes significantly improves the recovery of seriously ill children.

Miss McKenzie, along with friends and family, threw a Big Chocolate Tea Party to support the charity's campaign to raise £100,000 to help run the ten "home from home" facilities, like Crawford House, which it runs across the country.

Georgie, who spent his first Christmas in hospital, is now on dialysis five times a week and is awaiting a kidney transplant from his father, which will happen only once Georgie puts on enough weight.

Miss McKenzie added: “We live a good 45 minutes away from Newcastle and because Georgie's admissions were quite serious a number of times we needed to be as close as possible.

"We had some of the hardest and longest months of our lives when we were staying at Crawford House over Christmas when Georgie became seriously ill with bronchiolitis. He just couldn’t cope any longer. But he beat the odds and pulled through.”

The Sick Children’s Trust runs two houses in Newcastle supporting families with sick children at both the RVI and Freeman Hospital. The charity, which helped over 3,500 families last year country-wide, provides the accommodation, as well as emotional and practical support, to families with sick children in hospital in the UK.

For more information about how to support The Sick Children's Trust visit www.sickchildrenstrust.org.