London-based neonatal and pediatric transport team expanding amid busy year for calls

The London, Ont.-based team tasked with transporting critical neonatal and pediatric patients to Children's Hospital is expanding as the local health-care sector grapples with a busy respiratory virus season now in full swing.

Officials with London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) said their neonatal pediatric transport team has already responded to nearly 1,000 service calls this year, and they're adding a third shift to meet the increase in demand, set to start next year.

Launched in 1990, the team of 20 LHSC nurses and respiratory therapists is the oldest of the four neonatal pediatric transport unit teams that currently operate in Ontario, and was the first to transport children up to age 17.

"Apart from the virus season and pandemic … it's steadily gotten more and more busy," said Henry Roukema, the team's neonatal medical director and a neonatologist at Children's Hospital.

"I think there's more recognition for pediatric transport and the benefits of pediatric transport. The other teams in the province are [also] moving more toward pediatric transport."

Currently, two London shifts operate, one during the day and one at night. Officials say a third shift would allow overlap and fill the gap. 

"The goal is to essentially have two teams 24/7, but we're incrementally increasing as we go," said Anna Gunz, pediatric critical care transport team director and a pediatric intensive care doctor at London's Children's Hospital.

Another complication is a need for experienced and qualified health-care workers, Gunz said. More than a year of extra training is required to be a provincially certified transport clinician.

Health-care staff on the team work at bedsides in the hospital as well as on transport, meaning members could be pulled away to fill a third shift.

"It wouldn't be sustainable, but for the short term, we could manage that," Roukema said.

Hospital officials held a media conference at LHSC's Victoria Hospital campus on Thursday to announce the planned expansion and showcase the vital work done by the team.

The purpose of a neonatal and pediatric critical care transport medicine is to create an extension of the ICU to the community, Gunz said, noting many of their patients need specialized treatment and equipment.

"There's a high complexity to it, especially in the premature babies in the neonatal ICU, up to even our 18-year-olds that we see in critical care," she said.

Team members are contacted by regional hospitals when a neonatal or pediatric patient in their care is in need of stabilization and levels of care that only the Children's Hospital can provide.