Our Impact

"Scaffolder Steven suffered life changing injuries when an electric cable sent 100,000 volts of electricity shotting down his arms and he suffered extreme burns. “I was launched off my feet and fell 6 metres, landing face-down on the ground. The huge drop had broken my leg, but worse than that, I had extreme burns down both arms - to the extent that even now I’m still unable to fully use my hands.

My injuries were so severe that the hospital had to quickly operate, sewing my left hand into my stomach to keep the tissue alive. The whole ordeal was horrific and really opened my eyes to everything, because on the 27th of November I should have died.

Being apart from my family and visiting the MediCinema as often as I could showed me how important these small things are we take for granted are – like trips to the cinema, dinner with friends or walks on the beach with your son. MediCinema gave me back myself again and I never could have expected the amazing support system that came with it."

"I had a tumour in my face, this little thing, the size of a pea, had grown and grown. Within two weeks of going to see the GP I was lying on the operating table. I thought they would be making a little incision to get the tumour out, but the surgeon told me they were going to be deconstructing my face. They basically unzipped my face on one side, leaving me with a scar that runs from the top of my ear to below my Adams apple.

When I think back on the night before the surgery, I was absolutely terrified. You’re lying in your hospital bed and even though you’re a grown man you just feel so vulnerable. Inside every bloke like me there’s a little boy saying ‘What’s going on’. Then suddenly two people walked in and asked if I wanted to go to the cinema..

When the film finished, I felt happier. Just having a few hours away from the ward meant I could have a break from the worries about my upcoming surgery and what was to come for me too. Instead, I could come back to the ward uplifted. The film had a happy ending and it made me feel more hopeful that I would have my own happy ending too."

"The doctors and nurses can look after your physical health but unfortunately, they don't always have the time to help you with the mental health side of being in hospital. It's such a rollercoaster of emotions and there's no escape to it all. To be able to be taken away from the ward and drift into the depths of a film is invaluable and helps the patients’ overall recovery process.

I've been in and out of hospital receiving physical and mental health treatment and most recently because I had relapsed with an eating disorder. More and more young people have been entering hospitals because of mental illness and going into hospital is such a daunting and, in some ways, a very lonely experience, so having a service like this is vital to give essential help in the darkest of hours."

"If you met Lexy, you’d think she is such a happy, bubbly little girl. But she is battling so much. She has a missing chromosome which has caused developmental delay, and she is visually impaired, so doesn’t see potential dangers around her – and doesn’t understand them either. When she’s poorly, even with a cold, the pressure on her body is so intense that it can’t cope.

Sometimes it’s just easier not to go out. But when we arrived at the MediCinema, I watched Lexy walking in, her happy self. The staff were so genuine, so welcoming, and no-one was looking down their nose at her. And when the film came on, I didn’t watch it – I just watched Lexy. She was up and dancing whenever a song came on, laughing and enjoying herself. She would shout out funny words – something I would dread normally - but no-one was moaning or criticising or making a comment.

And if she needed a little break, she would just rest on the floor and we didn’t have to worry. I could have burst into tears. I was looking at her thinking: ‘She can just be herself’. "

"Heidi started suffering from multiple seizure-type episodes and my wife and I rushed her to Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary, where the doctors struggled to diagnose her fast-developing symptoms.

She had become non-responsive; she was vacant behind the eyes and spent most of the time awake just lying in bed. She had ADEM, a very rare form of encephalitis that causes the immune system to attack the brain and shut down. Everything became about trying to engage and stimulate her brain, and MediCinema played a big role in her getting better.

From the get-go, the cinema was a helpful tool to motivate Heidi to try new things and leave her hospital room – an essential part of her recovery, but difficult to achieve in hospital where every day can feel like Groundhog Day.

During our first film, we had to leave halfway through when Heidi’s medication started causing havoc and the second we put up our hand, the nurses were straight there to comfort Heidi and wheel her out. And on the next visit, Heidi sat through the whole film… enjoying every second of it!

Although we couldn’t have had better care, being in hospital takes a mental toll on you – and so those positive experiences at MediCinema are the ones we choose to look back and reflect on now."

"At the end of 2021, I was rushed to A&E. I had clots in both my lungs, caused by a cancer I didn’t know I had. It was situated in an odd place – inside a vein going into my heart. I was 24 at the time and had to have open heart surgery then chemo as an outpatient.

Some time later I relapsed. The lymphoma had gone to the base of my brain and I was admitted to Guy’s Hospital for 12 weeks for intense chemotherapy. That time in hospital felt eternal, like it was never going to end.

When you’re an inpatient, you’ve done nothing wrong, but you feel like you’ve been sentenced for committing a crime. It felt as though I’d lost everything. My hair was falling out, I felt so rough, and I was being referred to as bed 12, bed 13. I felt everything had been stripped from me.

MediCinema became the enjoyable part of my really insane new life in hospital. It broke the cycle of feeling like I was in a cell and it gave me an outlet. It was somewhere to go and be with other people who enjoy films and were all in the same situation.. It felt like MediCinema was acknowledging that we might all be going through something hellish, but that life doesn’t have to be that way."