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| HOW WE HELP |
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Money donated to COSMIC is used to:
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Buy state-of-the-art equipment for the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU)
at St Mary's |
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Fund a programme of groundbreaking research into life-threatening childhood diseases that has a global impact on new treatments |
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Pay for training for health professionals involved in paediatric intensive care |
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Support families and staff |
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| State-of-the-art equipment |
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The equipment used on PICU is extremely expensive to buy and must be frequently serviced and upgraded. Here are some recent examples of equipment that COSMIC has bought for the unit:
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A patient monitoring system that allows all eight paediatric intensive care beds to be monitored from one central station and on one screen. This system, which cost £45,000, has greatly improved the PICU team’s ability to watch patient vital signs centrally and to respond to any changes instantly. |
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A third High Frequency Oscillatory Ventilator. This highly specialised piece of equipment can provide respiratory support in our most critically ill children. |
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With the help of the Sydney and Phyllis Goldberg Memorial Trust COSMIC has purchased a new indirect calorimeter to monitor energy needs in critically ill children on life support. Without the correct nutrition children take longer to heal. This machine helps us to understand what each child needs to give them the best opportunity to get well quickly. Read more. |
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Further support from the Sydney and Phyllis Goldberg Memorial Trust has allowed us to buy a Baby Lung Simulator which will help us understand how the lung works. It will help us to most effectively provide vital helium and oxygen gas to babies on ventilators with a variety of diseases such as bronchiolitis and asthma. Read more. |
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| Groundbreaking research |
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COSMIC donations support an extensive programme of research into life-threatening childhood diseases, using data taken from all PICU patients admitted to the Unit since it opened in 1992.
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For more details about the research programme supported by COSMIC, click here. |
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| Training for health professionals |
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Thanks to another very committed independent fundraiser, we now have a dedicated nurse education budget for training nurses and other health professionals involved in paediatric intensive care.
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This pays for courses leading to professional qualifications, external short training courses, seminar and conference attendance and the continuing professional development of intensive care specialists. Find out more.
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| Support for families and staff |
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Parents and other carers with desperately sick children are anxious and want to be close at hand. Naturally every family would like to be resident while their child is in the hosptial but space is severely limited. COSMIC, in partnership with St Mary's, provides local accommodation so that every parent can be within a few minutes walk of the hospital. COSMIC spent more than £18,500 last year.
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With the help of a significant donation from one family COSMIC was able to fully refurbish and modernise the facilities for staff and parents within the PICU.
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Having a child admitted to intensive care can be very traumatic and families may need specialist help and counselling. COSMIC was able to help St Mary's by donating money to start a service for professional counsellors who help them by providing both practical and emotional support.
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