Transport incubators ensure safe, critical care on the move

Over 800 babies are treated at St Michael’s Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) each year. Some of whom are the most severely unwell children in the country, including those transferred from other hospitals to receive NICU’s specialist care.

Many of the babies in NICU require intensive monitoring and lifesaving critical care. Maintaining the correct conditions is therefore essential when babies are being transported between the delivery suite and NICU and to Bristol Children’s Hospital for specialist procedures. Throughout these transfers, a transport incubator provides continuous patient monitoring to ensure safe, high quality critical care on the move. On average NICU admits one baby every day using the transport incubator and does at least two transfers per day.

Baby Ianto's story

Ianto was born with a heart defect and at just 2 days old needed to be transferred from St Michael’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit to Bristol’s Children’s Hospital cardiac unit to get the critical care he urgently needed. Pictured right is baby Ianto in the specialist transport incubator that kept him safe and level on the hilly journey in the ambulance.

Rebeka, Ianto's mother, said:

“The first weeks of his life were so emotional, we were waiting for him to undergo high risk surgery and there was a lot of worrying. Even though it’s only a short distance from NICU to the children’s hospital, they are so fragile and you want them to be safe.”

Thanks to the incubator, Ianto was safely transported to Bristol Children's Hospital so they could perform emergency heart surgery and provide the critical care that he needed. Pictured right, Ianto is now a happy, healthy little boy thanks to the care provided by Bristol city centre hospitals.

Help make hospital transfers safe for seriously ill children

Sadly, every year, hundreds of babies are in need of emergency or planned hospital transfers in our local hospital’s and we want to help all of them. 

But to help critically ill children remain stable during these transfers, we need another incubator. 

Due to the age of NICU’s current transport incubator, the purchase of a new transport incubator, designed and built specifically for NICU patients’ needs, is vitally important. With up-to-date and advanced equipment now available, this transport incubator will allow staff to support the most unwell babies in ways current equipment cannot.

Please help a child like Ianto today get the specialist care they desperately need, and remain stable and safe during emergency hospital transfers between our hospitals. 

Make a donation today

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Thank you for your continued support. If you have any queries, please contact us at [email protected].