Story
Walnut Ward is classed as a Level 1 Special Care Baby Unit where we can admit babies born from 31 weeks gestation; the majority of babies born at this gestation require minimal support in relation to their breathing & growth and are therefore best suited to this level of care. On admission we must decide what level of care a baby requires, and if necessary stabilise them on the unit prior to transferring them out to a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit via our specialised transport service.
As the largest SCBU in England (yes, I’m pretty proud to say that) we have capacity for 22 cots, 3 of which can be used for babies requiring high dependency care. We regularly monitor our numbers and very often have been known to run at 80% capacity if not more. When cots aren’t available for pending admissions, we have to work closely with maternity to either arrange transport of mother’s prior to delivery or we must transfer the baby shortly after birth. As you can imagine this can be very difficult for the families involved as they may be separated from those close to them at a time when they need them most. In 2016-2017 roughly 40 families were either transferred out or delayed from returning to us as we didn’t have available cots.
Our aim to expand by an additional 4 cots and we hope to do this by converting Pixies into a similar spec as set out in Dolphins our current high dependency nursery. Pixies is currently set up to accommodate 4 mothers with their babies, a purpose we very rarely use it for as we are able to do this in the maternity setting.
Following our expansion we then hope to become a Level 2 or Local Neonatal Unit. With this we’ll gain both an intensive care cot and an additional high dependency cot allowing us to care for babies born from 28 weeks; both improvements to our unit will ultimately aim to reduce the number of babies transferred out from our unit and therefore keep our families closer to home. It does of course come at a great cost to the unit, however considering both the emotional as well as financial costs of transferring out our babies, every single penny spent will be absolutely worth it & will make a huge difference to the families involved.
As a nurse on the unit I get to witness first hand how separation affects a family, and it is for that reason that I am proud to be taking part in this years ride4life.
The second project funded by this ride is the purchase of a 3D Mammogram, this revolutionary tool will hopefully improve the early detection of breast cancer. With a friend and colleague recently undergoing breast cancer treatment at DVH and with the future of this care in our hands I couldn't think of a better year to support two brilliant projects.