Hospital Program Assists Families: Henrico Facility AIDS Those With Babies in Intensive Care
By Tammie Smith, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.
Nov. 9–”In addition to the high-tech care, we want to provide high-touch care,” says Dr. Vijay Dhande.
Charles and Sherry Martin of King William County were looking forward to the birth of their twins — they just didn’t expect them to be here so soon.
Nicholas Andrew Martin and Lynze Nicole Martin were born Wednesday morning at Henrico Doctors’ Hospital, about five weeks early.
The babies are in good shape but are spending some time in the hospital’s neonatal intensive-care unit.
“They were worried about their lungs,” Charles Martin said of the hospital staff. “I feel like they are in good hands here.”
The Martins will be one of the first families to benefit from a new March of Dimes program at Henrico Doctors’ Hospital that will provide more intensive support to families with babies who need the type of specialized care provided in neonatal intensive-care units.
The hospital and the March of Dimes have each committed $30,000 for each of the next three years to fund the program, which will include a March of Dimes family specialist; an advisory panel that includes parents; a lending library of books and DVDs; and aftercare for families when the baby goes home or support when a baby dies and a family is grieving.
“In addition to the high-tech care, we want to provide high-touch care,” said Dr. Vijay Dhande, a neonatologist and medical director of the neonatal intensive-care unit and progressive-care nursery at Henrico Doctors’.
According to the March of Dimes, there are about 12,500 pre-term births a year in Virginia, and the number is growing. Preterm births occur more often in women age 40 and older and in women younger than 20. An increase in multiple births to women undergoing in vitro fertilization and similar procedures and more births to older women are factors helping drive the need for neonatal intensive-care services.
The March of Dimes has the program in place in hospitals in other states, said Steve Farbstein, board chairman of the March of Dimes, Virginia chapter, who was at the hospital Wednesday for a ceremony launching the program. He said Henrico Doctors’ was chosen for the first program in Virginia was because the hospital already has a developmental follow-up clinic for babies after they have left the unit.
Molly and Tayloe Negus, whose daughter Kyleigh, born in 1998, spent time in the unit, talked about their ordeal.
“It shifted real fast from joy to fear,” said Tayloe Negus. “We didn’t know what was happening. We didn’t know what to expect.”
March of Dimes officials said the plan is to expand the program eventually to all hospitals in the area with neonatal intensive-care units, most of which already offer some level of family support services.
Locally, that includes VCU Medical Center, Bon Secours Richmond’s St. Francis Medical Center, St. Mary’s Hospital, Memorial Regional Medical Center and CJW Medical Center, which like Henrico Doctors’, is owned by HCA Inc.
“There are a lot of needs out there for families,” said Dr. Karen Wharton, a neonatologist at Bon Secours’ hospitals. “Any way we can streamline it or simplify for them will certainly be to their advantage.”
Contact staff writer Tammie Smith at TLsmith@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6572.
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