After young Sam Willis was struck down with meningitis it took him six months to learn how to smile again.

During that time, he was at the John Radcliffe Hospital, in Headington, Oxford, where his parents Ros Avery, 41, and Matthew Willis, 40, were told that their eight-month-old son had severe brain damage.

Ms Avery said: "Up to that stage there was absolutely nothing wrong with him in terms of development.

"Now he can do less than a newborn baby. He has a gastrostomy, which means we feed him through a tube straight through a little hole into his tummy. He can't move any part of his body voluntarily, his sight is affected and his hearing is affected in one ear.

"It took about six months for him to smile again, and a year for him to react to his own name. He's in a wheelchair and will never be able to walk."

Bardwell School nursery pupil Sam, now four, was diagnosed with pneumococcal meningitis at eight months, and was admitted to intensive care at the JR.

The illness had gone undetected because he did not have the tell-tale rash often left by the condition, and because he was a baby, there were no signs of other common symptoms like neck pain and sensitivity to light.

Charity accountant Ms Avery said: "He was in intensive care for two weeks and then moved to 4C, a paediatric ward, for six months.

"Intensive care is horrible. It's an airless area and you can't be there the whole time. You get hardly any information, because there's very little to say.

"Sam was my first baby and I'd been with him non-stop because I was still feeding him, but I just had to sit there and wait. After two weeks I was allowed to hold him, and that was really the first time I cried."

Now the couple, of Mill Street, Kidlington, are urging people to help with the final push to complete the £15m Oxford Children's Hospital Campaign, because they understand how vital the new 106-bed building is.

As well as spending six months at the JR, the family visited the Radcliffe Infirmary, where Sam had surgery to insert a fluid-releasing shunt, the Park Hospital, where he was treated for epilepsy, and the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, where staff examined his hips.

He also had a swallow test at the Churchill Hospital, where he returns regularly to the Hugh Ellis Paediatric Assessment Centre - a one-stop clinic to assess pre-school children suffering from a range of disabilities.

Ms Avery, who has two other children, Christopher, two, and two-month-old Kaitlyn, said: "We think all the paediatric staff are marvellous. We think the facilities are out-right diabolical.

"Trying to look after a disabled person in hospital is impossible, because there's no hoist over the beds and the bathrooms are difficult to use.

"Having lots of different sites is just a waste of time. You can't get hold of the consultants because they have to visit different hospitals and, as a result, they can't consult properly with each other.

"The children's hospital will give them more time to do important clinical work and children won't have to be shipped around any more."

When it is completed in January next year, the Oxford Children's Hospital will house children's services which are currently spread across the city.

So far, £11.6m of the £15m target has been raised.