Father-of-two Anilkumar Patel has been in King George Hospital for over 100 days after testing positive for Covid-19.

When his 63rd birthday came round on Sunday (16 August), our team on Clover ward decided he shouldn’t miss the opportunity to celebrate and feel special just because he’s in hospital. So they surprised him with a cake, homemade card and a rousing rendition of happy birthday (watch our video above).

Sister Doris Olmedo said: “When patients spend their birthday with us we usually would mark it in some way. In this case we did a little more to make him feel special as he’s been with us for such a long time. We wanted to make it nice for him and he was really pleased.”

Anilkumar speaks to his family every day on Skype, however, our staff knew it would be hard for him not to see them in person on his birthday, which was why they pulled out all the stops, even making a colourful happy birthday poster for his bedside.

Anilkumar, of Chadwell Heath, said: “I am so grateful to the staff for everything they have done for me, and thank them for doing this.”