Jade has autism, an intellectual disability, epilepsy and Metatarsus adductus – a condition which forces her feet turn inward and has required three surgeries to date.

She has spent the last month in intensive care being treated for Mycoplasma pneumoniae, also known as walking pneumonia.

Jade can’t walk long distances and her buggy – now nearly three years old – has begun to break, Jade’s mum Melissa Smith said. 

“The wheels hardly turn on it,” Mrs Smith said. 

“We’ve found it doesn’t support her head and neck so in the hospital we had to put a pillow, try and alter it so she was supported.

“She keeps throwing her head back and that could do some damage.”

The buggy is also a “safety blanket” for Jade and will be essential when she returns to hospital in May for further surgery on her feet, Mrs Smith said.

But the three-year-old buggy has become difficult to push and turn, and forces Jade’s knees up almost under her chin.

“Being in a different place like a hospital, she’s familiar with her buggy so we put her in that just to keep her calm but also to keep her safe,” she said.

Jade’s family have started crowdfunding to buy her a new buggy.

Without help the family could be waiting up to 12 months for a subsidy to go towards buying another. 

As of Tuesday afternoon the family were halfway to their $3000 goal. 

“I’ve been on every avenue through government funding and to get on a wait list to get funding on the buggy but there are too many wait lists,” Mrs Smith said.

“We need it just to make sure she’s safe.

“It’s a special needs buggy so it costs more than a normal pram for a child and that’s why we’re asking through the Go Fund Me page because everything that goes on with medical bills, with medication – we just don’t have the money behind us to do that.”

Jade’s Go Fund me page is at www.gofundme.com/uh-new-buggy-for-jade.