Children's Hospital to get more life-saving machines for babies

After having to rent essential equipment last April, Winnipeg's Children's Hospital is about to get two new machines to help babies who are born dangerously small.

The Children's Hospital Foundation of Manitoba fundraised enough money to purchase a pair of new jet ventilators, which costabout $45,000 US each.

One of primary uses of jet ventilators is helping babies breathe when they're born before their lungs are fully developed.

John Minski, a respiratory therapist at the Children's Hospital, said the ventilators are often used as alast option for treatment.

"When we need them, you need them ready and available as soon as possible. The wait could cost the patient their life," he said.

"The stress internally for all disciplines from doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, all the people who work in the hospital is unbelievable, when you need something that you think and you pretty well know will help and it's just not available."

In March, a ventilator helped save "miracle baby" Lucy Lau, who was born just 23 weeks into her mother's pregnancy and had to be airlifted to Winnipeg from Churchill, Man.

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Last year, Minski said the hospital was forced to rent more ventilators when a series of smaller infants were born around the same time, and all of the ventilators the hospital had were already in use.

Without the new units, the neo-natal unit at the Children's Hospital has eight jet ventilatorsused by roughly 30 to 40 babies every year, according to the Children's Hospital Foundation.

A spokeswoman for the foundation said two of those machines are from the 1980s and need to be replaced.

The ventilators help babies by pumping air very quickly and with less pressure than traditional ventilators, which run the risk of damaging tiny lungs. Minski said babies who need jet ventilators but don't get them can develop lung disease or learning disabilities later in life.

"If we can do our jobs right and we have a lot of luck and blessings from above, and the right equipment, then we can have outcomes like little beautiful Lucy, and that's all we want," he said.