LEADING Vale health campaigners Michael Amies and Sue Sollis have been honoured with British Empire Medals in the New Year’s Honours list.
Mr Amies from Pershore, former chairman of the Organ Donation Committee at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust has been honoured for services to healthcare.
Evesham’s Sue Sollis has been rewarded for her services to leukaemia research for her tireless work with the Tracy Sollis Leukaemia Trust.
Mr Amies’ adopted daughter Catherine died at the Worcestershire Royal in 2010 aged just 38 after suffering from diabetes since the age of ten.
She had been waiting about two years for a kidney and pancreas transplant. Her organs were used to save the lives of several people after her death but Mr Amies only found out she was a donor after she had died.
Since then he and his wife Elisabeth have been working to make organ donation a usual rather than unusual event, by encouraging more people to join the donor register and working with NHS Blood and Transplant and Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust to increase the number of organs made available for transplant.
Sue is a founder member of the trust which was set up in memory of her daughter Tracy, a pupil at Prince Henry’s in 1993 when she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia.
Tragically, her brave battle against the disease was lost, following a failed bone marrow transplant in February 1995, aged just 15.
Throughout her illness, Tracy was always determined to help fellow sufferers and the much-loved charity continues in her memory.
Achievements of the charity include the Tracy Sollis Laboratory which was officially opened by HRH The Duchess of Kent in 1996.
The laboratory is situated in the grounds of The Royal Free Hospital, London and is run by The Anthony Nolan Research Institute to carry out pioneering research to improve the lives of all those affected by leukaemia.
Professor Andrew Shennan, chair of trustees of Evesham-based charity Action on Pre-eclampsia, has also been honoured with an OBE.
The charity works with mums with pre-clampsia and their families as well as midwives and experts to research the condition.
Visit www.apec.org.uk or call the helpline on 01386 761848 for more information
