Tag Archives: Norfolk

Crowds gather in Norwich city centre to join March for Mental Health

Large crowds were drawn to today’s March for Mental Health in Norwich.

Photo by Andrew Day.

Hundreds of people of all ages gathered in Norwich city centre to add their voices to the call for better mental health services and to protest against cuts to the NHS.

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Drop-in centre launched for north Norfolk cancer patients and their families

North Norfolk Cancer Support Drop-in Centre founders (from left): Jo Haywood, Judith Miller and Diane Evans. Photo: KAREN BETHELL

A drop-in group for people living with cancer has been launched at Sheringham.

With a start-up grant from a local singing group and the backing of Macmillan Cancer Support.

The drop-in was the idea of Macmillan North Norfolk fundraising team members Diane Evans, Judith Miller and Jo Haywood, who, concerned about the limited support available to cancer sufferers and their families in the area, decided to take action.

Mrs Evans, who is a founder member of Sheringham women’s social and charity group Sisters in Spirit, which has raised upwards of £10,000, hoped the new group would bridge the gap between treatment and support.

“Talking to people, one of the things we heard over and over was that they couldn’t get a Macmillan nurse,” Mrs Evans explained. “But, realistically, with so many people affected that is an impossibility, so we felt there was a real need to offer something more visible in north Norfolk.

This social care crisis is hitting very close to home

I’ll never have to worry about social care for my mum. But it’s another story for her mother – my grandma.

A couple of years before mum was diagnosed, she and my dad took the decision to bring my widowed grandma down from Middlesbrough to live with them.

Obviously my parents did not factor in that one of them might not be around to look after her. Some of the final months of my mum’s life were spent worrying about where her mother would live once she was gone.

When mum died, my father tried again to get grandma, who will be 100 in four years, into residential care. We were told she could go on the waiting list for a care home.

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