By the time Lara Hynes was two and a half months old, she had undergone three major operations.

But because the theatres at Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital have no children's recovery area, her parents, media producer Lisa and IT project manager Andrew, were unable to be by her side when the tiny baby came round.

Mrs Hynes, 36, of Warwick Street, East Oxford, who also has two sons, Milo, seven, and Louis, four, said: "My eldest son has had a lot of operations in London, and there's always a children's recovery area, so you can sit with your child as they're coming round.

"At the JR you can't do that, because the recovery area is for adults and just not designed to have parents there.

"You can't sit with your child, which is just awful. We had to stand behind double doors and hear Lara just screaming and screaming. It was heartbreaking.

"When a child is groggy and drowsy, they want to see their mum and dad as they come round - it would make an enormous difference. That will be one of the benefits of the children's hospital, once it's built."

Lara, now two, was born in January 2004 with a blockage in her small intestine, which prevented her from absorbing any milk.

Within 36 hours, surgeons had repaired her bowel, and left her with a reversible stoma - where waste products collect in a colostomy bag - to aid her recovery.

But the system did not work properly, because her intestine was too short to allow food to absorb into her body.

Mrs Hynes said: "They reversed the stoma sooner than they probably would have done normally, but that second operation left a kink, which meant Lara had another obstruction in her bowel and she was still incredibly unwell, so she had a third operation.

"Over about 10 months, we spent five or six months on ward 4D. It just became a home from home for us - but I still had to keep normality for my boys.

"I remember the huge celebration we had when Lara started to grow properly. She's fine now. Although she's more susceptible to infection than her brothers, she's totally normal."

The family are encouraging others to help the Oxford Children's Hospital Campaign to raise £15m for the dedicated 106-bed building, which is due to open on the JR site in Headington in January next year. It will be tailormade for young patients, with classrooms, play rooms and family accommodation.

It will also have a children's recovery area, so parents no longer have to listen helplessly to the distress of their young ones following surgery.