Latifa Hospital's NICU receives 701 admissions this year

UAE, Dubai: Latifa Women and Children Hospital revealed that it’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), which is the largest NICU in the Northern Emirates— received 701 admissions from the beginning of 2019 up to August.

Out of the 701 admissions in the NICU, 53 per cent (372) were preterm babies.

Dr Mahmoud Saleh Elhalik, Consultant Neonatologist and Head of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Latifa Hospital revealed that; so far in 2019, the NICU had eight babies below 500 grams; adding that the smallest is 375 grams and is still receiving intensive care over the last 2 weeks.

Latifa women and children Hospital has an average of 4000-4500 deliveries per year.

ElHalik said that bed occupancy of the hospital’s NICU reaches on average to almost 85 per cent. Meanwhile, the average length of stay at the hospital is 21.47 days. The NICU has 64 beds dedicated for neonates. The NICU team includes 23 doctors, 4 respiratory therapists and almost 160 nurses who work round-the-clock. 

“Neonatology services provide comprehensive medical care for newborn infants, including high-risk critically ill neonates, extreme preterm infants born at 23- 24-weeks’ gestation or referred sick neonatal cases,” said ElHalik.  

Preterm babies are those born before 37 weeks, normally weigh less than 2.5kgs, and therefore need essential care to be nursed back to health including protection from infections, ensuring that they are kept warm, ensuring skin-to skin contact with the mother and that they are receiving sufficient breast milk.

Dr Elhalik said that some of the factors that can increase risks of going into early labour are: smoking, chronic illnesses, eating unhealthy food, certain infections, such as urinary tract, or other abnormalities related to their reproductive system, to name a few.

Dr ElHalik revealed that there are plans to standardize neonatal care in Dubai through the “Dubai Neonatal Network”, a programme developed by Latifa Hospital Neonatologists, which is the first of its kind in the region. “The network will retrieve data related to neonatal services in all NICU’s in Dubai to help benchmark neonatal services, collect data and offer comparative analysis and an opportunity for quality improvement projects in different neonatal intensive care units. Implementation will be through the Health regulation department in DHA.”

He said that collecting this data will help enhance neonatal care in all NICU’s in the country

Dr El Halik said that Latifa’s Hospital is equipped with the most advanced neonatal ventilation modes and hemodynamic monitoring that ensures pioneering neonatal services. The unit also stresses the importance of family centered care in which, parents are actively involved in the management of the baby through kangaroo care.”

He revealed that healthcare professionals at the hospital teach the mother and father Kangaroo Care (which is skin-to-skin contact between the baby and their parents) from day one, adding that parents’ loving touch have proven to have many health benefits.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) Kangaroo Care is one of the most effective ways to meet a premature baby’s needs for warmth, frequent breastfeeding, protection from infection, stimulation, safety and love. WHO estimates that this technique could save an estimated 450,000 preterm newborns a year.

“One of the key benefits of kangaroo care is aiding the lactation process. We emphasize on importance Breast-feeding and importance of mothers’, own milk, as the main source of feeding for our newborns in NICU. We managed to achieve around 85% compliance on this concept, which is 15 per cent more than the international figures of similar NICU’s. This contributed in achieving good outcomes for newborns admitted to our unit, and comparably excellent results on benchmarking with high standards NICUs worldwide such as the Vermont Oxford Network, which the department is a member off” he added.

Latifa Hospital is also a  pioneer in Dubai to provide a family room in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) where the neonate (especially complicated cases) and the mother stay for a few days prior to discharge from hospital to practice the bathing, feeding and routine care for her newborn.

DHA hospitals with perinatal services have a committed Infant Follow up Clinics that follow up graduates of NICU up to the age of 2 years to ensure adequate growth and development and manage complicated cases according to the best international standards. Latifa Hospital also have a dedicated breastfeeding/lactation clinic which is open to lactating mothers and offer support to all discharged mothers for all problems related to breastfeeding of their newborns.

Other achievements include the NICU winning the Hamdan Award for an Outstanding Clinical Department in the Public Sector in UAE in 2011-2012. Latifa Hospital also received the Baby Friendly Status in February 2011. WHO and UNICEF launched the Baby-friendly Hospital Initiative in 1991, as part of a global effort to implement practices that protect, promote and support breastfeeding.

The NICU also has a central monitoring system where nurses monitor screens 24/7 to hear any beeps that may sound out of the normal and has a special operation theatre for neonatal surgeries as well as counselling rooms.

© Press Release 2019