Help Save Claire’s Life
Our names are Amy and Bec, and we are organising this fundraiser on behalf of our client and dear friend, Claire Stratford. We have both been caring for Claire in our capacities as Registered Nurses through the NDIS, and in that time we have come to know her as a woman of remarkable strength, courage, and resilience.
Claire’s life story is extraordinary. Once a Zoologist and Elephant Handler at Perth Zoo — her dream job — she dedicated her career to caring for elephants, great apes, primates, and animals in desperate need of rescue. Later, she built her own animal sanctuary in Gidgegannup, where she poured her energy and love into rehabilitating countless animals.
But in 2021, the devastating bushfires in the Perth Hills destroyed her home, her purpose-built enclosures, and the animals she was nurturing back to health. She lost not only her home, but her sanctuary, her independence, and the life she had fought to build.
Since then, Claire’s greatest battle has been for her own survival.
Claire’s Current Reality – Starving to death in a first world country
At just 46 years old, Claire is living with Vascular Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (vEDS) — a rare, cruel condition that has ravaged her body.
- Her stomach has shut down completely and is now nothing more than a bag that drains continuously, 24 hours a day, just to stop her from vomiting.
- Her bowel no longer works. Even tube feeding directly into her intestines has failed, leaving her body starving.
- Her spine has collapsed due to severe malnutrition — her body has literally been consuming itself, stripping her skeleton for nutrients.
- Her entire body, including her face and even her eyelids, fills with gas and fluid daily, leaving her in absolute agony every waking moment.
- She has gone through the trauma of her stoma bursting out several times, each episode leaving her weaker and more fragile..
- She suffers terrifying mast cell attacks — sudden, severe allergic reactions that leave her gasping for air, relying on high doses of antihistamines and steroids to stay alive.
- Her chest has even stopped contracting at times, leaving her suffocating until emergency IV medications take effect. The trauma of these moments is indescribable.
Today, Claire is skeletal, masked by the extreme amount of fluid and gas beneath her skin, too weak to sit up, and confined to her bedroom. She cannot go outside. She cannot paint. She cannot hold her beloved animals. She is watching her world pass her by from her bedroom window.
She is alive only because of three IV lines a day — fluids, electrolytes, and medications — which cost her thousands of dollars each week out of pocket. But these IVs cannot sustain life forever. They are only buying her time.
The Cruel Reality
In a first world country like Australia, Claire has been denied the most basic human right: the ability to eat. She is being starved to death by a system that has refused her life-saving treatment.
There is only one treatment that can save her life: Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN) — nutrition delivered directly into her bloodstream. This has been confirmed by specialists in the area, a Senior Dietician and most recently a Melbourne specialist, and they all agree that she needs it - urgently.
Yet for years, Claire has been blocked. Her pleas have been ignored. Doctors here have refused to take responsibility, even discharging her without referral. She has been abandoned by the very system meant to protect her.
Claire’s GP of the past 20 years has never given up trying to help Claire in her fight for life and her right to be fed. Her GP has sent referral after referral but each one has come to a dead end - each being more devastating than the last as her light of hope dwindles. Claire is left trapped in an impossible limbo: too sick to survive without TPN, but blocked from accessing it by the very system designed to protect her. Claire is being abandoned.
Every day, we watch Claire slip further away. She is determined to live — and her resilience is extraordinary — but her body cannot continue like this.
How You Can Help
This fundraiser is Claire’s only chance. With your support, we are raising funds to cover:
- Emergency medical evacuation to the Eastern States - Claire has been quoted a cost of $98,000 one way to Melbourne!
- Immediate and ongoing TPN treatment and hospital care - without medicare covering interstate the daily cost is $500 a day and that does not include the cost of the daily specialists rates
- The thousands of dollars she is already paying out-of-pocket for daily IVs to stay alive
- Essential living and recovery expenses not covered by Medicare
Claire Deserves a Chance
Claire is more than her illness. She is an animal lover, an artist, a daughter, a sister, and a friend. She has spent her life caring for others — human and animal alike. Now she needs others to care for her.
Please, if you are able, donate to help give Claire the chance at life she deserves. No donation is too small. And if you cannot donate, please share her story — your share might reach the person who can save her.
On behalf of Claire, her family, and those of us privileged to care for her — thank you.
The Life Claire lived before the system turned their back on her
Keeping warm at the zoo. Matriarch elephant Tricia had a snuggle with keeper Claire Stratford under the warmth of a heater in the sleeping den on 31 July, 2009. Credit: Sharon Smith/WA News
How Your Donation Helps Claire
- $50 – Covers a day’s worth of IV supplies to keep Claire hydrated and stable
- $100 – Helps pay for essential blood tests, medications, and hospital-related costs
- $250 – Supports transport to specialist appointments and urgent medical reviews
- $500 – Contributes to hospital admission costs and specialist consultations
- $1,000+ – Brings us closer to covering the cost of life-saving TPN treatment and hospital care
Every single donation, no matter the size, brings Claire closer to the care that can save her life. Even sharing her story helps more than you know.
Organiser
Claire GoFundMe
Organiser
Gidgegannup, WA