{"id":9592,"date":"2022-05-31T13:47:26","date_gmt":"2022-05-31T03:47:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/?p=9592"},"modified":"2022-05-31T13:47:26","modified_gmt":"2022-05-31T03:47:26","slug":"helping-out-just-grand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/helping-out-just-grand\/","title":{"rendered":"Helping out just grand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Words:<\/strong> Sarah Booth<br \/>\n<strong>Photo:<\/strong> Wayne Taylor<\/p>\n<p><strong>Selfless sacrifice. That\u2019s how parents Bol Kuol and Kristine Justo describe the volunteer work of ward \u201cgrandparent\u201d Dina Milesi, who spends nine hours a week at The Royal Children\u2019s Hospital with their \u201cmiracle\u201d son.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>But Mrs Milesi sees it differently, and welled up when asked about her bond with Tyson, born premature at just 22 weeks.<\/p>\n<p>She says she gets so much out of the experience, having met and bonded with \u201camazing\u201d families in her six years of volunteering.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI met Tyson the (other) week and the rest is history,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s an absolute privilege that they trust something as precious as a child to someone they don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt really is special.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Co-ordinated by the hospital\u2019s social workers, volunteer grandparents visit a patient three times a week, giving the family welcome respite while knowing their child has company.<\/p>\n<p>With dad returning to work, five other children at home and Tyson in his ninth month in hospital, the family struggled to find the words to convey how \u201cextremely thankful\u201d they were.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Justo said it was a huge relief to know Grandma Dina was cuddling and playing with \u201cour miracle baby\u201d when they could not be there.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery parent needs to know that someone is there with their child,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe comfort you get from that is the best thing anyone could ask for. We are so appreciative.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hospital spokeswoman Alison Errey said: \u201cOur hospital simply could not function the same without their contributions. The Ward Grandparent Program provides invaluable support to infants and young children like Tyson.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_9594\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9594\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-9594 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/files\/2022\/05\/Dina-and-Tyson-e1653968774143-400x280.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"280\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/files\/2022\/05\/Dina-and-Tyson-e1653968774143-400x280.jpg 400w, https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/files\/2022\/05\/Dina-and-Tyson-e1653968774143-800x560.jpg 800w, https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/files\/2022\/05\/Dina-and-Tyson-e1653968774143-200x140.jpg 200w, https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/files\/2022\/05\/Dina-and-Tyson-e1653968774143-768x537.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/files\/2022\/05\/Dina-and-Tyson-e1653968774143-1536x1074.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/files\/2022\/05\/Dina-and-Tyson-e1653968774143.jpg 2028w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9594\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ward grandparent Dina Milesi with Tyson. Picture: Wayne Taylor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Selfless sacrifice. That\u2019s how parents Bol Kuol and Kristine Justo describe the volunteer work of ward \u201cgrandparent\u201d Dina Milesi, who spends nine hours a week at the RCH with their \u201cmiracle\u201d son.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":229,"featured_media":9594,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8971,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/229"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9592"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9595,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9592\/revisions\/9595"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}