Hi, I’m Jim Gilmour the dad of Cammy who as you can see is a happy smiley 10 year old boy. Cammy was born on the 2nd of December 2015, 15 weeks early and weighing less than 2lbs. As a result of the early birth Cammy had a bleed on his brain which means he has quadriplegic cerebral palsy. He will never walk, he is non verbal and is tube fed overnight and requires 24/7 care.

A few years ago the family set up a fundraiser through the charity Just4children which raised a significant amount. This was raised to safeguard Cammys future and the charity have helped a great deal since with specialist treatments and equipment. However as Cammy has grown moving him about has become a challenge for us all to say the least. We therefore took the decision in consultation with our local council to have adaptations done to our home to assist us but more importantly ensure Cammy has a safe, comfortable future in his family home.

Our garage was earmarked as the perfect area for Cammy, plans were drawn up and everything was looking great. This was 18 months ago and we would have hoped by now to have pictures of it finished, but in actual fact we are no further forward, the area that was originally designated for Cammy (The garage) turned out to be too expensive as the charity informed us that none of the money raised could be used for building work as we did not state in our original fundraising literature that the money may be used for future adaptations. This was a massive blow for us as the area would have been perfect for him.

We had to think of alternatives and decided that a downstairs room would be suitable as there was sufficient space for a wet room to be installed and plenty room for a specialist bed. Fife council who we had worked closely with and had agreed to fund up to £20,000 for the garage conversion came out to assess the room within our home. We then waited a month or so to be told that they would not be supplying us with any funds as they deemed the area not suitable for his needs. This in our opinion is nonsense and we therefore spoke to our local MSP who was a great and very quickly had a letter sent to Fife Council asking them to explain fully their decisions.

Unfortunately they doubled down on their decision stating it was not a good use of The Councils money. So we are left in a position where we have to arrange any adaptations ourselves without any help or funding from the council. The charity have agreed to pay for any specialist equipment including the installation of a lift for Cammy. We however as a family are having to fund any building work ourselves. We arent sure exactly how much that will amount to but would be less than the 20k the council agreed to fund in the first instance.

The whole process has been very stressful for the whole family and whilst this is ongoing Cammy is still getting bigger and heavier and moving him is becoming unsafe. We feel as a family that our beautiful son deserves so much more. So many decisions have went against him and we just want him to have a safe comfortable family home that will meet all his complex needs.