Imagine receiving the life-altering news that your child has been diagnosed with a serious illness and then losing your job when you take time away to look after them.
Christina Harris has lost her job of 19 years because she is looking after her daughter Skye who has been diagnosed with leukaemia. Christina courageously shares her struggles of balancing the care of her critically ill daughter with the fear of financial insecurity.
Christina tells us about her petition, demanding the government makes it a parental right to take a career break for families grappling with serious childhood illnesses. Garnering over 80,000 signatures, Christina's fight has drawn significant attention but still lacks solid governmental backing. Is it too much to ask that parents' jobs be held open for them until they can return to work?
Imagine receiving the life-altering news that your child has been diagnosed with a serious illness and then losing your job when you take time away to look after them.
Christina Harris has lost her job of 19 years because she is looking after her daughter Skye who has been diagnosed with leukaemia. Christina courageously shares her struggles of balancing the care of her critically ill daughter with the fear of financial insecurity.
Christina tells us about her petition, demanding the government makes it a parental right to take a career break for families grappling with serious childhood illnesses. Garnering over 80,000 signatures, Christina's fight has drawn significant attention but still lacks solid governmental backing. Is it too much to ask that parents' jobs be held open for them until they can return to work?
Learning your child has a life-threatening illness as every parent's worst nightmare, but imagine then losing your job and financial security as well. That's what's happening to thousands of parents across the country who are taking time off to look after their sick children. I'm journalist Angela Walker, and in this podcast I talk to inspirational people and discuss under-reported issues. Today I'm in conversation with Christina Harris, who's lost her job of 19 years because she's been taking time out to look after her daughter who's got leukaemia. She's petitioning the government to change regulations to protect the jobs of people like her. Thanks for joining me, Christina. I'm really sorry to hear that Skye's been unwell. How is she at the moment?
Christina Harris:
She's currently doing really well. She's back at school. She just started secondary school and she's doing really well at the moment. We're just seeing most of the someone in hospital, unfortunately because she had an infection, but she's off her antibiotics now and she's doing okay at the moment.
Angela Walker:
That's good, and it must be a relief for her to go to school and see her friends. A bit of normality, I guess.
Christina Harris:
Yeah, she loves it and she's really enjoying her new school as well, which is lovely, and I think she needed a bit of a fresh start. So, yeah, it's good.
Angela Walker:
And I'm a mum myself and I can only imagine how awful it is to learn that your child's got serious illness. How are you coping?
Christina Harris:
I take one day at a time and sometimes I take an hour at a time. Some days I'll be more challenging than others and I just try to second, to be strong for her and for her brother. Yeah, that's the best I can do.
Angela Walker:
Could you tell us a bit about Skye's illness? When did you realise that she was unwell?
Christina Harris:
So a week before she was diagnosed she was in pain in her rib. I didn't obviously think at the time she was anything serious, but I took her down to the doctors. It was a Friday afternoon. I took her to the doctors on the Monday and he checked over, listened to her and he thought there might be anxiety pains. So we kind of went home thinking that might be the case, because she had suffered a little bit with anxiety just before then. So I very quickly realised that it wasn't because she was complaining of the pain in her sleep in the night. So I knew it wasn't anxiety obviously. So I took her down to A&E and asked for them for X-ray of her lungs just to make sure there wasn't anything there, which they did, and they did an ultrasound as well.
Christina Harris:
And so three different doctors on this occasion, because they all wanted a second opinion. And it turned out she had a tiny little bruise on her, on her lung, which they thought might be due to a fall or some kind of injury, but nothing that we could remember she had done. She hadn't done anything, so they had sent us home with antibiotics hoping it would kind of clear, and then we left it a couple of days and it didn't get any better or worse and she was in a lot of pain, particularly at night time. So I took her back down to A&E and this was on the 7th of December, the day she was diagnosed in the middle of the night and they did another x-ray on her lungs, which at this stage were both filled with pneumonia, which is what caused the pain. And then they moved us up to the ward the children's ward where they just ran routine blood tests as they do and started antibiotics right away, and the blood came back really quickly and the doctor came in and told us she had leukaemia.
Angela Walker:
That must have been such a shock, Christina.
Christina Harris:
It was awful. I just, yeah, I mean, I couldn't. I couldn't even talk, I couldn't even say anything to the doctor, I just walked away crying um, yeah, it was horrible. I just it didn't feel real at all and I didn't understand that it just happened so quickly and you know, she had to show no obvious childhood cancer symptoms leading up to this. So it was a real, real shock.
Angela Walker:
I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, okay. Okay, so you're a working mum. And what happened then? When you told your employer because you know, skye needs your help, she needs her mum to look after her what happened when you told your boss that your daughter was really poorly?
Christina Harris:
I initially phoned my manager and told him and obviously I've worked with him for many years and he's a good friend of mine and he, you know, obviously just said you know, you know, just go and be with Skye, which was obviously what I was going to do, regardless, because you know you would drop anything to be with your child. So we were very quickly rushed up to Great Ormond Street Hospital and after a few days I've got a call back from them and they spoke into the owners of the company and they just said you know, just do be there for Skye, don't even think about work. Um, you know, we'll help you as much as we can, just be there for her now and we'll, you know, deal with work in the new year. So I did that and yeah, which was lovely to hear because obviously I didn't want to worry about work as well.
Angela Walker:
At what point was it that the company turned around and said well, you know you're going to have to leave?
Christina Harris:
She was diagnosed for Christmas, just after the new year, I got a call to say they they were unable to pay me for the time I needed to offer her, which I was. I think I was shocked about it because obviously I was hoping there might have been something in place but there wasn't. That took a little while to get used to the idea of no pay for unlimited amount of time. So we just I just obviously carried on looking after her for a few months and then I had a further meeting with them about six to eight months later, but it wasn't until a year after that I'd had a whole year off on page with her that they told me they couldn't hold my job open any longer.
Angela Walker:
How did that make you feel, Christina, at the time?
Christina Harris:
I was shocked and upset. I guess it was hoping bearing in mind, you know, i'd been doing that same job for such a long time that there would have been some kind of middle ground. I offered to work from home and I offered to come into the office and days where I was able to, because she might be attending school. But yeah, everything I suggested wasn't. I was just told it wasn't going to work for the company.
Angela Walker:
Research by the University of York called Make Every Child Count showed that around 90,000 children in the UK have got a life limiting or life threatening condition. That's an awful lot of children and an awful lot of parents in your situation. Now I know that you would like to see some change. Tell us about this petition that you started.
Christina Harris:
So the petition is to try and safeguard parents jobs, basically, and for the government to offer career breaks to parents who are off for an uncertain amount of time to care, you know, for the seriously ill child. I'm not asking for it to be paid, I'm just asking for unpaid leave until you're in a position where you're able to return to your job, and that is that. Yeah, that is basically the petition. I mean, there's lots of other issues around the support that parents with ill children get, but yeah, I'm fighting this fight at the moment and hopefully we'll get somewhere with that.
Angela Walker:
And employers will probably say, well, they have sympathy but they need some kind of continuity. What would you say to them? What kind of what are the practicalities that you could offer really, that you could suggest would work for somebody in your situation who's got a really poorly child that they need to look after? And balancing that with kind of you know, the needs of a company?
Christina Harris:
Obviously, I understand that companies can't go without an employee for that amount of time. I wouldn't expect that no one can. What I was hoping could be implemented is that the parent take, obviously, a career break with unpaid leave and they will have a temporary member of staff come in for a bit like maternity or paternity leave, if you like, and then maybe with a view to extend it if the parent needs a bit longer off with a child, which obviously the government funds already. So I don't see any reason why something similar couldn't be brought into to help parents in this situation.
Angela Walker:
It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that someone in your situation could take a year or so off and then somebody else could be brought into to cover that position on a temporary contract. Now let's see what kind of reaction have you had from people about your petition.
Christina Harris:
I've had I would probably say 98% has been amazing feedback. People they have been in the same situation almost for a routine beyond for this to go through and people are shocked. They've been in situation years and years ago and they're shocked that nothing still hasn't been done about it and we're still in the same place as they might have been 20 years ago. It's been amazing feedback. I've had so much support and you know people telling me, you know thanking me even for doing this, because this is not for me. You know I can't change what's happened to me. This is for future parents. They might find themselves in in the same unfortunate, awful situation. I'm fighting a battle for them. Basically, yeah, so I realized that obviously no, no companies can go without members of staff for a long period of time and that's that's not the aim of the petition. It's just to hold the jobs open, get hopefully funded by the government cover and that way, you know, no one have to end up losing their house at the end of it.
Angela Walker:
Now let's have a look. Your petitions are over 60 000. I know. If it gets to 100 000 it will be considered for debate by parliament, and you have had a reaction from the government. I'm going to read that out. It says the government understands the difficulties, worry and challenges faced by parents with seriously ill children. While the government's very sympathetic, it is not practical to provide a specific right to take time away from work and cover every challenging situation that an employee may face. Many employers are already very supportive when people find themselves in these situations. The government currently has no plans to introduce a specific right to take a career break for parents with seriously ill children. However, the government is supporting legislation which will provide support for parents, including those caring for ill children or facing other difficult circumstances. They're mentioning help for people with sick newborns and also plans to make flexible working easier. But what do you make of that government statement?
Christina Harris:
I don't really think they're addressing my petition properly. If I'm being honest, I was a little bit disappointed with the response. I don't feel they're actually really dealing with what I'm asking for. I'm offering weeks on pay leave for carers per year. If you have a two and a half year treatment plan with a very sick child, that's just to drop in the ocean. That's not going to benefit you very much, if at all. So yeah, I'm disappointed with the response so far, but I don't really think they're addressing the real issue here. None of those things they're offering really benefits what I'm petitioning for, unfortunately. So I'm going to keep going and hopefully somewhere along the line I couldn't get them to change their minds.
Angela Walker:
How are you finding the strength to keep up with this petitioning. Because you've got so much going on looking after Skye and your own worries.
Christina Harris:
How are you managing to keep going. Really, you know it has been tough. It does take up a lot of my time. On a positive note, I would say he's kind of shifted my focus a little bit too. It's very easy when you're in this situation and you have an ill child to focus on her health the whole time and also the negative side of things and the worry and the what ifs and the fear. In that way it's helped me a little bit to have a different focus and just changed my direction of thoughts a little bit, and all the amazing comments I'm getting from people on a daily basis are just wanting me to keep going.
Angela Walker:
What's next for Skye's treatment plan?
Christina Harris:
Yes, she has chemo every single day and she will have chemo every single day until she finishes next year and she's obviously hopefully we could stay at the hospital for a little while, fingers crossed, because she has been very unlucky. She's just caught everything going, but, yeah, we've been very, very unlucky. I'm hoping we'll have a few weeks for the hospital visits. In terms of treatment, she's in the maintenance part of her treatment, which is a two-year long period where she has daily chemo and she has a chemo infused at the hospital once a month and she has lumbar punctures and chemo injected into her spine at Great Ormond Street hospital as well.
Christina Harris:
That's the stage we're in at the moment, which, in terms of medication, it's a lot less than obviously it was right at the beginning when she was receiving her frontline, really, really intensive treatment. So she's feeling generally a little bit better all the time. Obviously she has. I think her normal feeling now is chemo. She doesn't know if you're slightly not to have chemo in her body because she has it constantly. But yes, we reached a fairly not too intrusive phase of the treatment and I'm just hoping that we can stay at the hospital for a while.
Angela Walker:
It sounds like you've sort of adjusted to a new norm which is getting you through it really. And so you're talking about the financial situation, because you were at this job for 19 years and they've told you you couldn't keep the job open, even working part-time. So how are you managing to cope financially, Christina?
Christina Harris:
So I'm receiving Universal Credit and there's some extra benefits that we get because sky is ill, so they are kind of tiny silver. It doesn't obviously cover all our bills, but what she was initially a diagnosis, one of my friends set up a GoFund Me I would go find me a page which has helped us immensely over the last year and a half and that's what we fall back on to when we're struggling and also contacting charities. There's a lot of charities. This helped us a lot as well and they've been amazing. But yeah, it is a constant battle and it is a constant worry and you're constantly filling in forms asking people for your help, but there is no other choice. Unfortunately. I just I have to keep going at it, unfortunately.
Angela Walker:
Well, I really admire you, christina, for all your campaigning. You know to help other people in your situation because you know when you've got a sick child, finances should be the last thing that you have to be worrying about. So I'm really sorry you've been going through that.
Christina Harris:
Thank you, yeah, I don't. It shouldn't be a choice, and it's really sad that when the situation where you have to choose between looking after your child or going to work and that's, yeah, it's just not right that really, really needs to be urgently addressed.
Angela Walker:
Well, I wish you all the best and I wish Skye all the best and her treatment and a speedy recovery, and I hope that she's completely clear very, very soon.
Christina Harris:
Thank you so much.
Angela Walker:
Thank you, christina, for joining us.
Christina Harris:
Thank you. Thank you for talking to me.
Angela Walker:
Today I've been in conversation with Christina Harris. I hope you found the program interesting. If you have, please share, subscribe and review. That means the algorithms will make sure that more people get to hear this program and if you'd like to get in touch, you can do so through my website, angelawalkerreportscom. Until next time, take care.