A NICU nurse at St. Luke’s
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SF Health Commission Prop Q
12/4/2007 Proposed Closure of SLH NICU
Good
afternoon.
My name is Angie Giovannoni. I've
worked at St Luke’s for the last 30 years.
I am a NICU nurse. When I
first heard that the NICU was to be closed, I wondered where would these
patients deliver their babies safely close to their homes? I learned that they
would be sent over to the California campus across town. It's funny how plans
are continuing to be made without any discussion with the physicians or nurses
on how we could maintain our excellent standard of care.
It was mentioned at the
last hearing that our NICU only had one or two babies at a time, and only about
30 a year are born needing our intensive services out of 1300 babies. If only
30 are born sick, I think this says much about the high quality prenatal
services that our patients receive from our excellent obstetrical doctors.
These numbers demonstrate our support for the high risk population that we
serve.
Not long ago, a woman came
into St Luke’s in premature labor. She had 26 week twins (which is 6 months of
pregnancy). She was too far advanced in her labor to be safely transported to
the Cal Campus. So we prepared to have her deliver at St Luke’s. Both babies
needed full resuscitation and assistance in breathing. They were both only
about two pounds each. Our pediatric hospitalist was present and the
neonatologist was called in. There were 3 respiratory therapists available, and
thankfully I had called one of our other NICU nurses who had just gotten off of
the night shift to come back and take care of the 5 sick babies that were in our
NICU at the time. A third highly skilled NICU nurse was with me to assist with
the twins. I can not think of the outcome if I hadn't had these other trained
nurses available.
The transport team picked
up the first twin at about 2 hours of life.
The second twin, who we placed
on a ventilator, was left with me, the other NICU nurse and our hospitalist.
They did not return for the
second one until 3 hours later or six hours of life.
They are both doing well today
thanks to the full team of \2 NICU nurses, two doctors and 3 respiratory
therapists.
This is what we do: We
stabilize these critically ill babies from the moment of birth. By the time
the transport team arrives, every thing is in order. They just have to bring
them over to the other hospital.
St Luke’s NICU RNs and
pediatric hospitalists successfully want to continue their mission of seeing
babies like these through their first critical delicate hours of life.
We know what is needed to
provide safe, quality care because we do the work. No one is asking us for our
input. There is no dialogue.
We've been having safe
deliveries at St Luke’s for more than a century, and should continue to do
so, and no baby should ever be separated from its mother at all if we have the
trained staff at our hospital to take care of them.
Thank you.
Angie Giovannoni RN
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