Our patient Aitch takes Down syndrome awareness to the jungle

Aitch is one of our patients, and this month he swapped Manchester for the Australian jungle as a contestant on I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!

He has also used the platform to talk about Down syndrome, a subject he has spoken about publicly before because of his sister.

Why that is worth something

Awareness is one of those words that gets used loosely, so it is worth being specific about what is actually happening here.

A programme like that is watched by millions of people, many of whom have no particular reason to think about Down syndrome from one year to the next. Someone talking about their sister in an ordinary, unguarded way, in that setting, reaches an audience that a campaign would struggle to reach and reaches it without anyone feeling they are being lectured. That is not a small thing to do, and doing it while several days into a jungle takes a certain amount of nerve.

A note on what we are and are not saying

We are pleased that Aitch is happy to be named as a patient, and he has agreed to us saying so. That is where it ends.

We are not going to discuss anyone's dental treatment, his included, and nothing here should be read as Aitch recommending or endorsing any treatment we provide. He is a patient who is doing something worthwhile with a large audience. We wanted to say well done, not use it to sell anything.

Well done, Aitch

From all of us at Washway Road, good luck in there, and thank you for using the airtime the way you have.

If you want to learn more about Down syndrome or support the work being done in the UK, the national charities working in this area are a better source than we are.