Our Children’s Hospital is the third largest children’s hospital in Canada and has one of the busiest Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) in the country. We serve a vast geographical region that spans west from London to Windsor, east to Kitchener/Waterloo and as far north as Thunder Bay.
Our health care professionals are caring for a growing number of infants, with about 1,000 premature and critically ill patients supported last year alone. These fragile infants often need specialized care for a whole host of complications. They may spend weeks or even months in hospital. State-of-the-art equipment is critical to their care. Children’s Hospital relies on philanthropy to be able to purchase 90 to 100 per cent of its medical equipment.
Thanks to the recent generosity of Carl and Pat Churchill, our health care providers in the NICU will have a new Giraffe OmniBed for our tiniest patients.
Premature babies have come into the world too soon, and every effort is made in the NICU to replicate the womb as much as possible. These babies need a life-enhancing, warm, comfortable environment to support optimal development.
A Giraffe Omnibed is an advanced, developmentally supportive “microenvironment” that is designed to promote the growth and stability of fragile newborns in the NICU. The Omnibed incorporates an incubator and a radiant warmer into one single unit and enables caregivers to control all aspects of the baby’s environment including heat, humidity, oxygen, light, and noise level. Some of these babies are born at 24 weeks and can spend up to two or three months in an incubator before they are ready to go home with their families.
“The more OmniBeds we have in our unit, the less we will have to take an OmniBed away from an infant in order to give it to another baby that is sicker and more unstable.” – Registered Nurse, Children’s Hospital, LHSC.
Children’s Health Foundation is honoured that the Churchill Family has made this life-saving gift so that patients at Children’s Hospital can continue to receive the best possible care and most possible hope.
Carl and Pat are sharing their story to inspire others to support Children’s Health Foundation — donations make such a difference for the children who are cared for at Children’s Hospital and for their families.
