GLASGOW CITY, Scotland — A brave little girl fighting leukemia will have a new home this Christmas after her mum’s appeal for a safer place to live.
Aria McGill, three, and mom Leighann Forsyth were facing a dire situation after doctors told Leighann that they had to move from their flat.
Medical staff claimed that the second-floor flat was not only too small, but also in need of extensive repairs.
It was deemed unsafe for Aria, who is incredibly weak, has limited mobility and needs her own bedroom to reduce the risk of infections that could kill her.
But Leighann was forced to take her little girl to live with her own mother, in a shared bedroom, because her applications for new tenancies were repeatedly turned down by housing bosses.
Leighann, of Greenock, Scotland, says she was even told she was not a top priority.
Councillor Colin Jackson took up her case, demanding that local housing associations resolve it urgently.
Now Leighann, a tenant with River Clyde Homes, has been told by Larkfield Housing that she has been successful with a bid for a house close to her parents.
The news comes as a timely tonic for the family with little Aria currently back in hospital.
“When Aria was diagnosed, I didn’t even know whether she would still be with us at Christmas,” noted Leighann from the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow.
“Then as it got closer we thought we wouldn’t have a house that was safe for us to live in,” she added.
“This is the best news we have had for a long time,” she said.
“Our Christmas wishes have come true”. “I don’t know exactly when we will be in the house because there is still work to do in it. But it is a huge weight lifted off our shoulders,” she continued.
“It would never have happened without Colin Jackson. I was getting nowhere until Colin stepped in,” she noted.
“Two weeks ago they couldn’t give me one house and then they were offering me two.”
Only days after they found out the news about the house, Aria was rushed to hospital by ambulance when a spike in her temperature raised alarm that she may have a life-threatening infection.
The tot has now recovered, but she has had to undergo another grueling round of chemotherapy.
Aria is under the care of the Schiehallion Unit at the Royal after she was diagnosed with blood cancer in June this year.
Leighann was given the devastating news that her daughter had acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
She immediately underwent a life-saving surgical procedure before spending eight weeks in hospital.
Despite asking her own social housing landlord River Clyde Homes for help and joining the Inverclyde Common Housing Register, she was knocked back for successive houses and at one point she was 39th on the waiting list.
Leighann was recently told by Larkfield Housing that she had been successful in her bid to get a house with them in Auchmead Road, close to her parents.
She said: “It is perfect, a three bedroom house which means we are reunited again as my older daughter can move back in as well. We are all together again.
“It is also close to my mom and dad. We rely on them if we need to drive up to the hospital.”
Councilor Jackson has told of his relief at the news.
“Aria and her family were let down by those who should have been there to support them,” he said.
“Sadly they are not the first and regrettably I know from experience they won’t be the last,” said Jackson.
Produced in association with SWNS Talker
