The Neonatal Unit at Wirral Women and Children’s Hospital provides specialist care to fragile babies who have been born premature or sick in the Wirral, Merseyside, Cheshire and North Wales areas.
The Neonatal Unit based on the Arrowe Park Hospital site, is one of only two ‘Level 3’ (the highest possible level) intensive care units in the whole of Merseyside and Cheshire.
Although special care baby units are common, many areas do not have a ‘Level 3’ baby intensive care unit so when babies are very sick or very premature, they often have to be transferred to other hospitals that can give them the care that they need. Arrowe Park is one of these hospitals.
Wirral’s Neonatal Unit cares for around 350 babies every year and their care has enabled babies born as early as 23 weeks to survive.
As well as babies from across Cheshire and Merseyside, Wirral’s Neonatal Unit now also cares for North Wales babies. Due to the shortage of neonatal intensive care beds nationwide, it is not uncommon to have babies from further afield being cared for in Wirral, with families from Hull, the Isle of Man and Cumbria all having recently stayed on site with their poorly newborns.
Here at IncuBabies, we recognise how lucky we are to have such a fantastic facility on our doorstep and are dedicated to supporting this vital care by helping Neonatal staff to develop an improved, state of the art intensive care unit to deliver the best possible standards of care to vulnerable and premature babies from across the region. With demands increasing on their services, and with the unit now caring for babies from a much wider area than ever before, there is now a real need for more financial support.
With big ambitions for tiny lives, every penny, we raise will help to improve the care provided to tiny and delicate babies whether that be through specialist equipment, training or improving the ward environment.
IncuBabies was set up by two Wirral ladies, one of whom is the grandmother of a little boy who was cared for by the Neonatal team. Other Trustees include Neonatal Matron, Jacqui Morgan and Consultant, Dr Oliver Rackham who work on the unit and spend much of their free time fundraising.
