Today (17 April), Mr Olivier Ghez, paediatric and congenital cardiac surgeon at Royal Brompton
Hospital, has been announced as the winner of ITV’s Good Morning Britain Health Star Award.
Mr Ghez was nominated in the Children’s Health Star category by Royal Brompton families for the
lifesaving surgery he performs on children diagnosed with congenital cardiac conditions. He said it
was a complete surprise to hear he’d won, “I am so humbled to receive this award it is a great
honour to receive such a testimony from the families of my patients.” Lydia Strachan, was one of
many Royal Brompton parents who nominated Mr Ghez to be considered as a health hero by the Good
Morning Britain panel. She nominated him for his extraordinary work in saving her daughter Hester’s
life.
Hester was born prematurely with serious heart complications and was under Mr Ghez’s care while a
patient in the paediatric intensive care unit at Royal Brompton Hospital.
Lydia explains, “Olivier performed multiple operations on Hester to repair her heart, which,
because she was so fragile and tiny, were not straightforward procedures.
“It was just before Hester’s first birthday that he decided to take a huge risk and perform a
complex open heart surgery when her heart was only about one and-a-half inches in size. It was
extremely risky but we knew we couldn’t wait any longer and this operation would give her a much
better chance of survival.”
After kissing her daughter goodbye before the operation, it was nearly ten hours before Lydia
received the call from Mr Ghez to say that it was a success.
Lydia said, “Olivier came and sat with my husband and I, still wearing his surgical scrubs and
clearly exhausted from the operation, to explain every detail of the procedure and the next steps.
What was even more impressive was that he came to visit Hester on the ward, every day after that.”
She adds, “What really stands out is Olivier’s level of commitment to the families. As parents we
literally put our child’s life in his hands but there’s nothing more reassuring than having someone
like Olivier, who obviously has the technical skills but is also completely committed to caring for
his patients.”
Lydia now refers to Mr Ghez and what he did for Hester as “medical magic” and also thanks the
specialist paediatric team at Royal Brompton: “We talk about them as part of our family. There
hasn’t been a single person at Royal Brompton who hasn’t been amazing in the support and dedication
they’ve given to us.”
Mr Ghez added: “It is our whole team at Royal Brompton Hospital which allows us to deliver the best
possible specialist care for children with congenital heart disease".
Highlights from the event, will air on ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Tuesday (25th April) from
06:00.
For further information, please contact:
Media relations officer
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Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust Tel: 020 7352 8121 ext 2237
Mobile: 07891 310 924
Email: h.gilligan@rbht.nhs.uk Follow us on Twitter: @RBandH
Notes to editors:
Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust is the UK’s largest specialist centre for the
treatment of heart and lung disease. Working from two sites, Royal Brompton Hospital in Chelsea,
West London, and Harefield Hospital, near Uxbridge, the Trust has an international reputation for
the expertise of its staff, high standard of care and research success. Experts at the Trust help
patients from all age groups who have heart and lung problems and provide some of the most complex
surgery and sophisticated treatments available anywhere in the world.
The Trust is the UK’s largest centre for the treatment of adult congenital heart disease and is the
country’s leading provider of specialist respiratory care. Over the years the Trust has been
responsible for major medical breakthroughs, such as the UK’s first combined heart and lung
transplant. It established the UK’s first adult service for cystic fibrosis, which is now one of
Europe’s biggest treatment centres for the condition, and has pioneered the use of primary
angioplasty for the treatment of heart attacks. Today the Heart Attack Centre at Harefield has one
of the fastest arrival- to-treatment times in the UK, a crucial factor in patients’ survival.
As a member of the Academic Health Science Centre (AHSC), in collaboration with Imperial College
London, Imperial College Healthcare Trust and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, the Trust
helps to drive innovation and improved care for over 1.1 million patients each year in North West
London, by aligning the research, education and clinical services of the partner organisations. For
further information, visit www.rbht.nhs.uk