Janeway Children’s Hospital Foundation

Each department within the Janeway provides medical treatment to children from all areas of NL and must be equipped and prepared for any eventuality at a moment’s notice. Ensuring our team has the tools needed to care for our children is the Foundation’s highest priority. In a world where medical technologies and treatment protocols are ever-changing, the support of our partners allows us to stay current and helps to introduce new state-of-the-art methods to enhance and keep pace with on-going advancements in pediatric care. Advancements such as the new Special Care Unit, which will allow us to care for our children more efficiently and effectively.

The Development and Rehabilitation Division at the Janeway is the only program of its kind for children throughout Newfoundland and Labrador. It provides service to children and adolescents with physical, developmental, and learning disabilities.

Babies under 2 years of age who are admitted to the Janeway for much-needed, or emergent, surgeries necessitate specialized Level I care. This level of care does not require a one-to-one nurse to patient ratio and is mainly for patients who do not require organ support.

Like the majority of Canadian children’s hospitals, Level I is the appropriate tier of care to be provided in the Special Care Unit. However, because the Janeway does not currently have a Special Care Unit for children under the age of two, all surgical babies are cared for in our Intensive Care Units, which provide Level III care. This level of intensive care is for patients who need support for two or more organs (or require mechanical ventilation). These ICU units are also staffed with one nurse per patient and have a doctor present in the unit 24 hours a day.

As a solution to this management of care, the Janeway’s Chief of Surgery Dr. David Price and Janeway leadership have requested a four-bed Special Care Unit to be built on the 4th floor. Close observation, frequent assessment, cardiac monitoring, and highly skilled medical intervention for surgical neonates and young children can be better managed in a Special Care Unit.

This new Unit will increase efficiencies for the NICU and PICU by freeing up beds, as it will allow critically ill neonates and children to continue receiving the Level III care they require, while graduating surgical babies to the Level I Special Care Unit built specifically for their needs.