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Unit spreads its wings

28/ 4/2006

STAFF from Hope Hospital's neonatal intensive care unit will be travelling to San Francisco to deliver ground-breaking research into tiny babies.

The doctors and nurses from the closure-threatened unit have led an international study to improve the care of very low birth weight babies and will be sharing their research with a worldwide audience at the end of this month.

The three nurses and two doctors who have implemented the study will present their findings to 5,000 neonatal and paediatric medical professionals from all over the world at a four-day conference beginning on Saturday, April 29.

The study, which was run from Hope Hospital, compared two different methods of weaning very small babies off ventilators using an ncpap driver - a piece of equipment that maintains babies airways when they no longer need a ventilator.

It ran for two-and-a-half years and focused on babies weighing less than 1,500 grams.

Babies at Hope took part and other hospitals with such tiny babies assisted in implementing the study, including a hospital in South Africa.

The conference is being staged by the USA Paediatric Academy Society and the staff from Hope were invited to take part in the conference and submit details of their study.

The team includes sister Lynn Bowe, sister Zoe Thomas, staff nurse Julie Hobson, research registrar Shamila Singh and consultant paediatrician Mike Robinson.

Sister Lynn Bowe said: "We are delighted to be taking part in the conference and sharing our ideas for better care and practice. Everyone in the neonatal unit has been involved in implementing the study and we hope that sharing our findings with the worldwide audience will enable our work to have a bearing on the future care of very low birth weight babies throughout the world.

"We have a high rate of very low birth weight babies in Salford so we were an ideal unit to host the study and our findings will definitely improve the way we care for smaller babies on our unit."

Under reconfiguration plans by the Strategic Health Authority, the preferred option is to close Hope's neonatal intensive care unit in favour of Royal Bolton Hospital.

Objections to the proposals can be made before May 12. For more details contact: 0800 587 2901, visit www.bestforhealth.nhs.uk, or email: consultation.response@gmsha.nhs.uk

MORE THAN 25,500 of you have now signed the Advertiser's Hands Off Hope petition. With only two weeks remaining before the consultation finishes on May 12, we need a last flurry of signatures to give the protest a final boost. Petitions should be sent to Hope Petition, 30 Church Street, Eccles, M30 0DF.