PICU Management of Complex Spinal Surgery Patients

Important Information for parents
It is essential if your child needs emergency or urgent treatment in the hospital that you bring them to the hospital.

Your child will be assessed in the Emergency Department and if your child requires treatment in the Paediatric Critical Care Unit (PCCU) the Paediatric Critical team will be involved early in stabilising and transferring your child to the PCCU.

We want to reassure parents or carers of children who are receiving treatment in the PCCU at RHSC that as far as possible one parent will be allowed by the bedside with the child. If you are unwell we will ask you to go home and keep in touch via telephone or video-link.

We want to thank patients and visitors for their understanding and following of the restrictions we have in place.

We also want to thank our staff for continuing to care for patients and keeping them safe in response to COVID-19.

We are able to offer vCreate to the parents of children admitted to our paediatric critical care unit. vCreate is a free secure video messaging service that allows clinical staff to record and send video updates to parents. Parents are able to access videos of their child when they are away from the unit to receive reassurance of their child's wellbeing, and to try and reduce any separation anxiety. It is safe, secure and available on any device. When your child is admitted to the paediatric critical care unit, you will be given an information leaflet about this service. If you would like to register for an account to use this, please follow the instructions on the leaflet. If you have any questions, please ask your bedside nurse or one of the vCreate champions, who will be happy to help.