Match Funded Beds Make Family Farewells Less Painful
A mother’s story of love, uncertainty and how ellenor helped her family find calm again.
When Kojo Aidoo’s wife Inutu died just a week after her 37th birthday he was grateful to the nurses at ellenor for understanding how he needed to be as close to her as he possibly could.
In the nights leading up to her death, the staff pushed a second bed right up next to Inutu so the couple could share their final days and nights together.
Now he is backing ellenor’s bid to get two cuddle beds for the ward, medical beds that can widen to double their width, allowing a patient and their family to lie side-by-side.
He said: “When your loved one is going from this life to the next, closeness is so important. You want them to be around people they love and feel as comfortable as they possibly can. ellenor made this possible for us and I can’t think of a better place for Inutu to have died.
“Cuddle beds are a great idea. They would also be for the children, the parents, not just husbands and wives.”
Match-funding charity Big Give helps organisations like ellenor raise more by doubling public donations through pledged funds from partners, corporates, or philanthropists. During the forthcoming campaign week, every donation made to ellenor will be matched1:1. The charity hopes this will mean not just one cuddle bed for its ward, but two!
Although ellenor staff found a way for Kojo and Inutu to be close in her final days, Kojo believes a cuddle bed would have made it so much easier.
Inutu died in April, after spending five days on the ward at ellenor. She left two lovely young daughters, Amariah, nine, and Eden, six.
Kojo, 36, said: “They lost their mother extremely young, but they are resilient. We were always very honest with them about what was happening. They have been having lots of support from their cousins and from the school – they are superstars!”
Inutu’s ill health began with a diagnosis of colitis and later liver disease. Then, in October 2024, she was diagnosed with cancer and underwent stoma surgery. Sadly, the cancer returned in February 2025, so plans for a liver transplant had to be abandoned. She never truly went into remission.
“Things started to go downhill from there,” said Kojo. “We had an oncology appointment at Kings. The consultant was very nice, but he had to be honest with us. He told us that the cancer was terminal and that it would now be about palliative care, which was not something we wanted to hear.
“We asked him how long she had, and he said it would be weeks rather than months.”
With the help of ellenor’s hospice at home team, Inutu was able to stay at the family home in Swanley until just a few days before she died. The nurses who visited persuaded Inutu it was not a good idea to go on holiday to Morrocco, where the couple had their honeymoon. It was safer to stay closer to home. Instead, the family had a wonderful time at Butlins in Bognor Regis.
Kojo said: “We also had lots of friends and family coming round. It was very hard but also a very sweet time. The ellenor nurses were lovely. They would come around about once a week and talk to us about what was happening to Inutu. They asked if she would like to come to the hospice to rest but I think she wanted to be at home with the children for as long as she could. She didn’t want to miss any time with them.
“Sometimes we would go into the hospice to talk to the clinical team. Everything there was lovely, so full of life. In the end she was finding it hard to do things for herself and so we decided it was time for her to be admitted. Once she was at ellenor she could rest, but we still had the children and other people coming to visit.
The staff at ellenor were amazing. It was the best place for her to be. Having experienced how different hospital settings can feel, I was deeply struck by the sense of peace at ellenor – it’s so peaceful, so full of dignity, love and understanding.
In her final days, Inutu was able to say goodbye to her birth mother, who had flown over from Zambia, and to her sister, who had been like a mother to her since she came to the UK as a child.
Kojo said: “When she died, she had her two mums and my mum, all there by her side. A lot of the people she loved were in that room.”
Kojo knows he is a young man to be facing widowhood and is happy to open up about his emotions and share his experiences, particularly with other men suffering the same grief.
“We are doing well, and we have found a lot of comfort in our faith,” said Kojo, a Christian who worships at a church in Farringdon in London, but also has a lot of support from fellow churchgoers locally.
“I find it helps to keep busy, doing exercise and working and learning a different language,” he said. “I know it’s important to talk to people who are close to me about what happened. I have done a lot of reading from people who are previous widowers and I know it’s important to talk.”
Amariah and Eden have been attending ellenor’s GEMS days, where they meet other children who have been bereaved and are helped to process their emotions.
Kojo said: “The kids have happy memories of their mum and I’m glad that is the way they see things. As they grow older things might change but for now, they are happy and going to school and clubs and visiting their aunties and uncles.
“ellenor is just the best and I will always think of it with warm memories. You do get an attachment to that place. They looked after us when we were so vulnerable.”
