Key functions include assessment, consultation, and tertiary care for mothers, infants and their families, follow-up outpatient services, teaching, outreach and research. All aspects of care are interdisciplinary involving health care providers from nursing, medicine, midwifery, social work, respiratory, physiotherapy and occupational therapy, and many other allied health professionals.
VIHA provide annual opportunities for nurses to enroll in specialty education programs with tuition and wage replacements support. In addition, there are other workshops on-site and within the program throughout the year in which nurses can enroll. Some educational activities are supported with paid time; others are on the staff members' own time.
The 8 bed Antepartum Unit, adjacent to the Labour/Delivery unit, provides care to at risk/high risk women. The Labour/Delivery Unit consists of 8 birthing rooms, 2 operating rooms and 2 post anaesthetic recovery rooms. Registered nurses, registered midwives, general practitioners, obstetricians and pediatricians are the primarily care providers. The Mother/Babe Unit is a 28-bed unit that provides care for postpartum women and healthy newborns. Our Antenatal Assessment Unit is an outpatient unit that provides many services including fetal surveillance, obstetrical consultation, amniocentesis, genetic counseling, and ultrasounds for women preconception and during pregnancy. The Gestational Diabetes Education Centre is an outpatient unit providing nutrition counseling, diabetes education and endocrinology consultation for women with Type I and Type II diabetes as well as gestational diabetes. Our Post Partum Home Follow-Up Program provides follow-up care and education by registered nurses for new mothers and their babies in their homes.
The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit team consists of two neonatologists, twelve pediatricians, two pediatric surgeons and anaesthetists, a neonatal cardiologist and neurologist, four dedicated teams of experienced R.N's, Clinical Nurse Leader and Clinical Nurse Educator, a Clinical Pharmacist, an Occupational Therapist , Physiotherapist and Social Worker, Respiratory therapists, laboratory staff and supporting personnel. Together we provide care for nineteen high risk newborns in our nurseries.
The three-bed tertiary care nursery provides care for extremely low birth weight infants and has leading edge equipment that is updated on a continual basis through support of the community and Victoria Hospital Foundation.
The Intermediate/Acute and Convalescent Care Nurseries can accommodate 16 babies. The team is proactive in providing evidence based practice including supporting Kangaroo Care and early breast feeding, developmental care and co-bedding of multiples, Neonatal Abstinence Program and end of life care to babies and families.
The Neonatal Follow Up interdisciplinary team sees specific babies in an outpatient clinic to age 4 1/2 years. The data collected has supported change of practice for better outcomes for our tiny clients.
The catchment area for our NICU is Vancouver Island, which has a combined annual birth rate of 7,000. Victoria has 3,000 births per year and the NICU admits 570 babies per year. The NICU accepts transfers from the rest of the province by the Infant Transport Team as bed space allows.
Nanaimo Regional General Hospital will open a "state of the art" 9 bed Level II Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in April 2007. A multidisciplinary team within a Family Centered Care model supports infants in the NICU. Ventilator support and Total Parenteral Nutrition are also provided in the NICUs.
Postpartum nurses have a 1 to 4 nurse patient ratio (4 mother baby dyads). Labour / Delivery nurses provide 1 to 1 support for women in active labour. The NICU at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital has a 1 to ¾ nurse to patient ratio. In our tertiary care nursery the average nurse to patient ratio is usually 1:1, the Intermediate/Acute nursery 1:2 or 1:3 and convalescent care nursery 1:4. These ratios are dependent on the acuity of the babies, however a nurse would not be assigned more than four convalescent care babies.
