Loose Woman star Denise Welch and husband Tim Healy opens new wing at Wirral hospital

Oct 19 2009 Liverpool Daily Post

Actress Denise Welch visits the new Ronald McDonald House at Arrowe Park Hospital. Pictured with denise is her husband, actor Tim Healy and their son Louis aged 6.

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.

There is also a Ronald McDonald House at Alder Hey Hospital.

The couple, who both star in Waterloo Road, stayed at the Alder Hey house when son Louis, 6, was sick.

They provide free “home away from home” accommodation, and rooms are usually given to families who must travel long distances for treatment.

Arrowe Park’s neonatal facilities are graded at level 3, making it one of the top hospitals in the country for caring for premature babies.

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.

Campaigners thanked the local community and hailed their efforts as “fantastic”.