THE family of Savanna Jane Roe has backed The Press Guardian Angels campaign.

Baby Savanna weighed only 4lb 11oz when she was born at York Hospital on September 23 last year with the extremely rare genetic disorder.

The Press reported yesterday how Savanna died of a disease so rare that doctors do not have a name for it.

She died on April 1, but throughout her short life she never stopped fighting.

Her mum, Shian Roe, 20, from Fourth Avenue, Heworth, York, has given her support to our campaign, which is looking to build two life-saving high-dependency rooms with new, specialised equipment.

Shian said: "A unit like that would be great at York Hospital.

"With Savanna we had to go back and forth to hospital in Leeds a lot, and it's a waste of NHS funds paying for ambulances and crews taking small children to Leeds when they could be treated on the doorstep in York - it might have helped us with Savanna if they'd have had a unit like that."

This unit would be the first of its kind in the region that could deal with youngsters arriving as emergencies.

These children could be suffering from illnesses including meningitis, septicemia, breathing difficulties, viral chest infections, obstructions of the voice box, severe asthma, bronchiolitis, convulsions or coma and physical injury.

A specialist nurse will care solely for these high-dependency children and other staff will be trained to get the most out of the improvements.

When Savanna was born by emergency caesarean section at York Hospital, she had to be resuscitated by doctors who whisked her away to the Special Care Baby Unit.

Savanna was born with three holes in the heart and water on the brain caused by a genetic defect.

A specialist geneticist was called in from Leeds to help to give the family a clearer picture of Savanna's prognosis, but the only other two similar cases found were in America.

Savanna had to be fed through a tube straight into her stomach, which meant she couldn't put on weight properly.

Savanna died on April 1. More than 200 mourners attended her funeral at St Denys' Church, Walmgate, last Wednesday, watching as her tiny white coffin arrived in a glass-sided carriage pulled by two white horses.

The family are now trying to raise funds for Martin House Hospice and the Special Care Baby Unit at York Hospital.

All the mourners wore something pink as a mark of celebration of Savanna's short life.