24 Hours in A&E

Mum (2x9)

Air date: Jul 11, 2012

This episode focuses on mothers, daughters and mortality. Seventy-one-year-old Josephine has been brought to King's College Hospital with chronic breathing difficulties by her daughter Jackie. Terminally ill with cancer, which has spread throughout her body, Josephine is nearing the end of her life. Josephine is so ill that decisions need to be made on whether she would choose to be resuscitated should her condition worsen. It's an impossibly difficult decision to make and a painful moment for Jackie, who's not ready to let her mum go. Nurse Abbie is treating Josephine. Before coming to King's, she worked in palliative care: 'It would be my worst nightmare if I had to look after one of my parents if they were passing on, but here's this person that you love so much, who brought you into this world, lying in a bed and their life is slowly coming to an end,' says Abbie. In the waiting room 67-year-old Azize is with her 44-year-old daughter Sara who's been bitten by her cat. It seems like a minor injury, but Sara has recently had radiotherapy for breast cancer and her immune system is very weak. Azize has moved back from Turkey to be with Sara during her treatment. Meanwhile five-year-old Olivia is having stitches on a head wound with her dad; and 12-year-old Mattheus is helping out by translating for his Brazilian grandmother, who has injured her wrist.