A mother and daughter from Bradford who founded a support charity for those living with kidney failure after experiencing it themselves have received an award.<\/p>\n
Three years ago Sofia Tsanou, 30, spent four months in hospital with kidney failure after complications from Type 1 diabetes.<\/p>\n
Tsanou, along with her mother Michaela Smith, went on to start the Bradford Kidney Patients Association in 2024, after discovering there was no longer an active support group nearby.<\/p>\n
It now has 130 members and was given the award by the National Kidney Federation for the best patients’ association.<\/p>\n
Along with supporting its members, including patients and their wider families, the charity also provides information, peer support and trips out for those receiving treatment.<\/p>\n
Despite the charity’s success, co-founder Tsanou is currently waiting for a kidney and pancreas transplant.<\/p>\n
She currently undergoes dialysis three times a week, after having spent time in hospital with a collapsed lung, sepsis and pneumonia.<\/p>\n
“My life is on hold while I wait for a transplant,” she said.<\/p>\n
“Dialysis becomes your routine and can be incredibly challenging, but starting the charity has given us a purpose. If we can make someone else’s journey a little easier, then everything we’ve done has been worthwhile.”<\/p>\n
The idea for the charity came after Michaela and Sofia attended a National Kidney Federation meeting and realised Bradford was one of the few areas without an active kidney patient association after its previous group folded.<\/p>\n
Smith said: “People living with kidney disease need more than medical treatment.<\/p>\n
“They need someone to talk to, someone who understands and someone who can point them in the right direction. We wanted to rebuild that support network for Bradford.”<\/p>\n
‘Little comforts’<\/p>\n
Since fundraising for the charity, the duo have been able to run coach trips to the beach for patients and their families.<\/p>\n
These trips, to Scarborough, Blackpool and Southport, are free for patients and \u00a35 for family members.<\/p>\n
They have also bought rechargeable fans for patients receiving dialysis during the warmer months and distributed Christmas gift bags to all 380 renal patients across Bradford and Skipton.<\/p>\n
When funds allow, the charity also provides small gestures of appreciation for NHS staff who care for renal patients.<\/p>\n
Tsanou said: “Our goal is to provide those little comforts that can make a difficult day feel brighter.<\/p>\n
“Many patients spend four hours on dialysis, three times every week. The staff and patients become like family, so anything that improves that experience is incredibly valuable.”<\/p>\n
Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds<\/a>, catch up with the latest episode of Look North<\/a>.<\/p>\n More on this story<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mother and daughter from Bradford who founded a support charity for those living with kidney failure after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":766938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[49,48,84387,84,74032,281996,281992,281991,281994,281993,281995],"class_list":["post-800967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-dialysis","tag-health","tag-kidney-failure","tag-kidney-patient","tag-michaela-smith","tag-national-kidney-federation","tag-pancreas-transplant","tag-sofia-tsanou","tag-support-charity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/766938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}