Children’s hospital expands capacity in a family-friendly environment

The Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa (HUS) is opening new facilities during the current week after a two-year construction and start-up period: new intensive care, anesthesia and operating wards join a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) unit that went into operation in new facilities at the beginning of October.

The new anesthesia and operating wards have six operating theatres, one more than in the older facilities. Intensive care capacity and personnel have been increased.

The new facilities will enable the Children’s Hospital better to meet needs for operations requiring intensive care.

The facilities place an emphasis on the family’s role in the care processes and enable the parents to participate more in various stages of care from the operating units to intensive care.

The facilities have been designed to appeal to children and to create feelings of safety. For example, the MRI holding area is equipped with a Kitten scanner – children can place animal characters into this play imaging device and so prepare for their own scan. The equipment manufacturer has donated an Ambient light show for the scanning room, where changeable colours and video images make the room calm and less frightening.

Characteristic of the Children’s Hospital are a large share of emergency care and a wide range of care. Approximately 40 per cent of the patients are younger than 12 months, but the intensive care ward treats patients of up to 16 years of age. Half of the patients are from other parts of Finland, as the Children’s Hospital is the only unit in the country capable of operations requiring extensive life support systems.

Children’s Hospital at HUS