Loose Women star Denise Welsh opens Ronald McDonald house at Arrowe Park hospital

Oct 21 2009 by Vicky Anderson, Birkenhead News

Loose Woman star opens new wing at Wirral hospital

LOOSE Women presenter Denise Welch and husband Tim Healy, of Auf Wiedersehen Pet fame visited the new Ronald McDonald House at Arrowe Park hospital – as the first families moved in.

The house – which lets families stay with their ill children – was opened in a refurbished wing of the hospital on Saturday, and is the second to open in Merseyside – after the one at Alder Hey Hospital.

The couple, who both star in Waterloo Road, stayed at the Alder Hey house when son Louis, six, was sick.

They provide free “home away from home” accommodation.

Arrowe Park’s neonatal facilities are graded at level 3, making it one of the top UK hospitals for premature baby care.

Funding for the £850,000 unit, which has seven bedrooms to sleep up to 28 people at a time, came largely from collection boxes in McDonalds restaurants.

Some £90,000 more came specifically for the Arrowe Park hospital from a Radio City fundraising appeal.