Image: NSW Premier Chris Minns and Health Minister Ryan Park. AAP Images, Bianca de Marchi
by GRACE JOHNSON
The NSW Government has announced that positive pressure isolation rooms will be built into the cancer care wards and intensive care units at the children’s hospitals in Westmead and Randwick.
The isolation rooms help keep immune compromised children safe by reducing the risk of exposure to viruses and other infections. The positive air pressure, created using a specialised air ventilation system, hinders airflow between the corridor into the patient’s bedroom. This allows hospitals to have greater control over possible infections.
The isolation rooms, known as Positive Pressure Ventilation Anterooms (PPVA), prevent immunocompromised children from becoming afflicted with airborne pathogens from the outside environment.
The isolation rooms are expected to be completed at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead and the Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick by 2025.
Minister for Health Ryan Park said, “These PPVAs are a crucial tool in helping us protect seriously ill and severely immunocompromised children.”
“These new facilities for the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network will benefit patients and their families who are navigating challenging, and often very complex, health concerns,” he continued.
In a first for paediatric healthcare in NSW, the government has also announced the building of ‘carer zones’ in intensive care units in the children’s hospitals, allowing parents and carers to stay close to children as they stay in hospital.
Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network’s Chief Executive Cathryn Cox PSM said, “By integrating advanced clinical services under one roof and introducing carer zones throughout the new hospitals, the network can provide more holistic support and quality care to every patient that comes through the doors while offering families a place of comfort and respite.”
What about Randwick?
The government says they are committed to rebuilding essential health services with the September budget, allocating $3 billion to improving hospitals across greater Western Sydney. The children’s hospital in Westmead has already developed prototypes of the new rooms, allowing staff to familiarise themselves with the design and technology.
But the news comes as the fight to retain the cardiac surgery program at the Randwick children’s hospital continues, with no word yet from the health minister.
When the health minister wrote to Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick in July informing them of his decision, hospital staff wrote a letter back, saying his decision will “adversely affect children cared for across all departments of SCH including Oncology, Intensive Care, Neonatology, the Emergency department, Paediatric Surgery, ENT, Trauma, General Surgery, and Thoracic Surgery.”
Shadow Health Minister Matt Kean has reportedly slammed Health Minister Ryan Park for backflipping on the decision.
The petition to save cardiac surgery at the Sydney Children’s Hospital can be signed here.
