NHS 70 - A Lasting Bond

Janine Welford and Coleen King started off as patient and nurse, but after thirty years they have a special bond.

Janine suffered horrific injuries in a fire at a Hull paint factory and Coleen cared for her in the regional burns centre at Pinderfields hospital in Wakefield.

Janine, who was then Janine Gilfilan, was an 18-year-old working at the Humbrol plant on Hull's Hedon Road in 1988, when an accident saw it go up in flames.

Her friend and fellow worker, 17-year old Jennifer Powley, was killed.

With eighty per cent burns to her body, few thought Janine could survive.

Now Janine has returned for the first time in decades to the hospital which saved her life.

The unit is very different from the one she spent four months in following the fire.

That original building was the first specialist burns unit in the country to be built with public money when it was opened in 1966 by chief medical officer Sir George Godber, who'd been instrumental in setting up the NHS itself.

Two decades later the centre led the way in treating victims of the Bradford City fire in 1985, still one of the largest mass casualty events it has dealt with.