Smeaton’s Tower in Plymouth will glow in memory of Sarah Roch, a radiant mother lost to cancer at 44.
Sarah worked at Derriford Hospital as an operating department practitioner. Doctors and nurses plan to attend her funeral, which happens on Monday, February 24. A wake will follow the ceremony. Derriford Hospital and Smeaton’s Tower will both be lit that night as a special tribute. The tower is on the Hoe in Plymouth, an area Sarah loved very much.
Her mother-in-law, Marion Roch, shared her feelings, stating Sarah always radiated positivity and was a truly wonderful person. You simply could not argue with her, and everyone loved her joyful spirit.
Doctors diagnosed Sarah with cervical cancer in 2019, though symptoms began six years earlier. The hospital trust apologized for errors, having missed cancer cells in a 2013 sample. By then, the illness had become terminal.
Sarah had to stop working and received chemo in her final days. She was only 44 years old when she died last month. The hospital took steps to fix its diagnostic process, with the goal of preventing similar mistakes.
Sarah became the face of awareness week, telling women to check their bodies and seek second opinions. Marion said Sarah helped change protocols, and some good came from her experience.
Sarah did not want blame; she wanted things improved to stop this from happening again. Sarah met her husband, Justin, when they were teenagers and they were together for thirty years. They married twenty-one years ago.
They have two children together: Isla, now twenty-one years old, and Ewan, eighteen years old. The family lived in Estover previously, then moved to Derriford, close to their workplaces.
Justin is an associate scrub practitioner working in cardiac theatres and has worked at the hospital for 27 years. Sarah initially wanted to be a chef, then became a health care assistant, and later qualified as a dental assistant.
After that, she trained more, becoming a specialist in operating theaters. Besides her hospital work, she had a beauty business which closed during the pandemic. She continued beauty treatments at home, mixed with her NHS work.
Sarah’s funeral will take place on Monday at 2:30 pm at The Park at Merafield Road, a crematorium between Plympton and Plymstock. The wake takes place at The Corinthian afterward, on the Hoe.
Anyone is welcome to celebrate her life, after which they will walk to Smeaton’s Tower and raise a glass to Sarah, who truly loved life and the Hoe. Donations will go to cancer research.
Mr. Desmond Barton, a consultant gynaecologist oncologist, leads the study at Royal Marsden Hospital. Marion said Mr. Barton did Sarah’s surgery, which gave her several more years.