Hamad Medical Corporation’s (HMC) Al Maha Children’s Unit at Rumailah Hospital has established a successful programme to help long-term ventilated children at home reintegrate into family and community life.
The special programme has ensured that these children, many of whom have been hospitalised for years, experience a marked improvement in their quality of life.
“The Al Maha Children’s Unit was established in 2010 to care for children with chronic illnesses requiring long-term ventilation; however, we realised early on that providing only good clinical care was not enough.These children deserved a more holistic approach to care that would see them have a better quality of life,” said Dr Abdul Aziz Darwish, medical director, Rumailah Hospital.
“What ensued was a very specialised programme to safely wean some patients off their mechanical ventilators. Some patients were even able to be discharged safely so they can live at home with their families,” he added.
The highly specialised paediatric unit, Al Maha1, is geared towards the treatment of children with chronic illnesses requiring long-term ventilated care.These children, aged between three months to 14 years, have multiple system disorders, requiring a mechanical ventilator to help them breathe.The disorders can stem from congenital conditions to those acquired later in life, possibly due to an infection that caused respiratory disorders.
Dr Reem Babiker Abdalla Mohamed, general paediatrics consultant at Al Maha 1, explained, “Within the multi-disciplinary teams, comprising specialist doctors and nurses, we first reviewed all the available options to determine the right care plan for the children who were assessed as being viable candidates for this project.”
“We then had to engage with the parents to ensure they fully understood what we were aiming to do; it was essential to get them to consent to the new approach and believe that this would deliver real benefits to the lives of their children. Depending on the age and cognitive ability of the child, we would explain the changes in treatment to the child.We strongly believe that good communication underpins the success of such projects,” added Dr Mohamed.
This project was developed to enhance co-ordination of care by engaging the family in the care of the patient and thereby providing improvements in the patients’ quality of life by helping them integrate into their community. This successful project has seen over 10 caregivers trained to care for children with tracheostomies, which has resulted in three patents being safely discharged and returning home. In addition, another four patients were weaned off of mechanical ventilators.
