Telethon 2025: A Simple Patch gives sick kids choice of fun designs on nasogastric tube tape
When Megan Wassink drove her two-year-old daughter to the hospital, she never expected to be told her little girl was lucky to be alive.
Little Hayley had been unwell for weeks and it wasn’t until Miss Wassink made the 3.5-hour journey from their home in Katanning to Princess Margaret Hospital that they found out why.
The toddler had type 1 diabetes, and the lack of diagnosis had led him to multiple organ failure.
“When I got there he was unconscious,” Ms. Wassink said.
“They took him straight to the ICU. We were so lucky we saw them when we saw them.”
Hayley was placed in an induced coma as experts worked day and night to save her.
Once the danger of losing him was gone, the toddler was kept under careful supervision in the hospital for two weeks until he recovered.
“It’s a terrible thing, it’s not something anyone can understand unless you’ve been through it,” Ms Wassink said.
“He was just attacking her from the inside.”
Countless wires, tubes and medical devices monitored and kept Hayley safe as she received treatment to get well again.
Once diagnosed, he had to have daily injections and constant glucose monitoring to control his condition; This wasn’t going so well either.
“It all started because he had to have all these daily injections and as a two-year-old he didn’t want to have anything to do with them,” Ms Wassink said.
“I was actually coloring it with Sharpie.
“Then NG (nasogastric) tubes came about because a friend’s child was diagnosed with leukemia.”
From this frightening experience, A Simple Patch was born.
The custom-made clinical tape comes in dozens of colors and patterns and is designed to give children choice and comfort during fearful moments.
They can be used to secure nasogastric or oxygen tubes, IV cannulas, or other medical devices that must remain in place.
“They can only choose one thing in their lives when everything else is being thrust upon them,” Ms. Wassink said.
“If they can have a little option that makes things a little easier for them, that’s what it’s all about.”
And this year, a special collaboration with Telethon will debut reams of medical tape emblazoned with Fat Cat.
“I saw that Izzy was one of the Telethon kids and her mother was obviously one of our customers,” Ms. Wassink said.
“I asked him if he wanted a Telethon patch (nasogastric tube patch) for Telethon that said Fat Cat on it. Then someone from Telethon got in touch and it happened from there.”
The Fat Cat tape and patches were donated to Perth Children’s Hospital as part of the Telethon weekend, giving children something they could choose for themselves when many other factors were out of their control.
