THUNDER BAY — The regional hospital is putting together a much-needed transport team for newborns requiring medical care in the area.
As part of an earmarked $2 million investment previously announced by the province in the summer, the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre is getting $1 million to establish a specialized newborn transport team.
Dr. Teresa Bruni is the medical director of the women and children's program at TBRHSC and a pediatrician in the city.
She said the newborn transport team will be vital for the community since the children's hospitals are in other parts of the province.
"So presently, in Ontario, there are four dedicated neo and pediatric transport teams - they reside at the pediatric hospitals. We will now be the fifth team to be able to get to our neonatal and pediatric patients in the region with a faster response time."
Bruni said they are training nurses and other staff on the team. "We have purchased specialized equipment which we have on-site, and they'll be trained on it, so we will be able to provide a faster response time."
The pediatric doctor laid out a situation for how this new team will benefit families in the region.
"For example, right now, if a premature infant is born in Dryden, a team would have had to fly from London to pick up that patient as opposed to ourselves. Here, we will be able to respond to that baby faster because we care for premature infants 30 weeks and above at Thunder Bay Regional and the same with some of our sick pediatric patients in the region."
The hospital has partnered with the Ornge air ambulance service as well to assist in some of the patient transfer needs. Bruni estimated the team should be ready to start in the summer.
George Jeffrey Children's Centre will be getting $856,000, which will go into programming to help children with speech-language pathology, physiotherapy and occupational therapy.
The remaining $103,700 has been allocated to the Children's Centre Thunder Bay, which will use the funding to support programming for pediatric mental health and addictions, said Diane Walker, the CEO of Children's Centre Thunder Bay.
"The mental health and substance use issues in our community are high, chronic, acute. We really need to be getting into the systems where kids and families are - such as schools and other grassroots organizations like Roots, Our Kids Count, Evergreen United Neighborhood, those kinds of organizations."
Walker said the cash will help alleviate wait lists by providing more timely help to children who need it sooner rather than later.
"When somebody needs someone to talk to, they don't need it in three weeks - they need it today," she said.
"And so the more we can be out where kids are, the less they need to sit on a wait list because they're connected to adults who can provide the services they need. So that's really important for kids and young people. They're way less likely to come for service, but when a counsellor or a helper or a peer supporter is there, they're more likely to come and talk to that caring adult."
The $2 million is part of a $330 million investment from the province that was announced in July for pediatric health services across the province.
