Mum seeks £3m for life-saving treatment for baby

A mother is aiming to raise more than £3m to take her baby son to America for life-saving heart surgery.

Ollie, who turned one just over a week ago, was born with a hole in his heart and defects in his arteries.

His mother, Jasmin, from Gobowen in Shropshire, said UK hospitals told her that they could not operate on him and had only offered palliative care.

She said she could not accept that and insisted he "deserves the chance to grow up, to go to school, to live the full life that every child should have".

His heart condition is known as pulmonary atresia with ventricular septal defect and major aortopulmonary collateral arteries (PA-VSD MAPCAs), and it has meant he has spent most of his first year in and out of hospital.

But while British hospitals will not operate on him, Stanford Children's Hospital in California has said it should be possible.

Jasmin said that if it worked, he had a chance of living "the long, full life he deserves", but she has calculated the cost of flights, treatment, and recovery to be more than £3m.

"Everything [in America] is a lot more expensive but also it's a very complex surgery and we've got to do it in two stages," she said.

"What we're hoping and what I'm trying to work out with Stanford is if we can pay for the two stages in two parts, so it would be about £1.5m each.

"And that would give us more time to raise [the money]."

Jasmin said the second stage would be carried out six to nine months after the initial surgery.

Despite everything he has been through, Jasmin said Ollie was "the bravest, strongest little man you'll ever meet" and her "biggest inspiration".

Fundraising started just over a week ago, and although the target is huge, she said: "For me it's not a matter of if I can get him there; it's a matter of when."

She said she had already raised £6,000 and was being supported by people in her local area and also schools and former work colleagues.

Jasmin also said she planned to sell her house to help pay for the treatment.

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