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Private Notes
DIFFICULT DECISIONS
The National Children's Heart Centre in Our Lady's Hospital, Crumlin, sees in the region of ten thousand children as outpatients, and operates on about five hundred of these children annually.
One in every one hundred babies born in Ireland is born with a congenital heart defect, and all come to Crumlin to be operated on, some within hours of being born.
Recent advances in heart surgery has meant that children with complex heart conditions who previously wouldn't survive now have a chance at life. However, often in these cases, surgical interventions are palliative and can only buy time in the hope that future developments will unlock new options to prolong their lives in fifteen or twenty years time.
Baby Zack Murphy is one of these children. Diagnosed antenatally with hypoplastic left heart, dextrocardia and situs inversus - his heart is located on the right side rather than the left, and all of his organs are the wrong way round - mother Aoife was offered the option of a termination, or withdrawing medication and palliative care after birth.
However, after a meeting with Professor Mark Redmond who offered high risk surgery and a possibility of success, Aoife decided to give her baby the option of survival. The first procedure was a palliative treatment to buy time to enable Zack to put on enough weight to survive more extensive heart surgery. During the course of the documentary, we follow as the team embark on the next incredibly novel stage of surgery. While Professor Redmond has performed aspects of it before, this is the very first time to attempt all of these elements in the one surgery.
Three year old Lee Cotter from Cork was diagnosed antenatally with an extremely rare heart defect and was his mother Aisling was told that the pregnancy probably wouldn't culmintate in a live birth. Fighting all odds, Lee was born at 9 months despite numerous heart abnormalitles; transposition of the great arteries, two holes in his hear
LIFE IN THE BALANCE
Directed by Anna Rodgers and produced by Carrie Nathan, the second documentary in the Crumlin series focuses on Intensive Care Unit in Crumlin Children's Hospital. Here, the staff look after critically ill children and have over 1,000 admissions each year. Every child presents to the team with difficult dilemmas requiring minute by minute monitoring and sometimes emergency interventions.
With children's lives hanging in the balance on a daily basis, the medical care in paediatric ICU is a matter of life and death. Every parent who admits their child to ICU hopes they will recover, but at times the medical team have to consider whether it's right to carry on with treatment.
Jessica Hall is a resident baby on the intensive care unit. Diagnosed with a fatal heart condition called cardiomyopathy, Jessica's only hope for life is to receive a heart transplant. She is currently on the waiting list; every child needing a heart transplant must travel to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, and we follow as Jessica receives her passport and remains on standby to travel to London at any given moment. If - or when - a heart becomes available, Jessica must be urgently transported to London within a few hours. Despite having another little toddler at home in Monaghan, we observe Elaine as she spends days, weeks and months sitting by her little girl's bedside, praying for the day she gets the phonecall that has the potential to save her daughter's life.
30% of the children admitted to ICU are neonates, often requiring surgery within the first few days of their life. One such case in this documentary is Megan Rogers, a little baby born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome. Her heart is effectively only operating with one chamber. We follow baby Megan on her journey from the Rotunda Hospital to Crumlin, where she faces open heart surgery in the first few days of life.
Another baby arriving to Crumlin's ICU on one of their first days in the world
Documentary focusing on the Centre of Haematology and Oncology at Crumlin, where every year almost 200 cases of childhood cancer are treated.
UNDER THE SKIN
Our Lady's Children's Hospital Crumlin looks after thousands of children with birth defects and skin conditions which affect their appearance, but also, their quality of life. The fourth documentary in this series focuses on the Dermatology and Plastic Surgery departments, where they treat complex and rare conditions or diseases, some of which have no known cure.
From common skin complaints such as excema, to highly unusual conditions such as itchyosis, the Dermatology Department sees more than ten thousand children a year. Lead by Professor Alan Irvine, the department runs busy weekly clinics and frequently join forces with the Plastic Surgery department in order to treat more unusual physical abnormalities and conditions that may require surgery.
A huge number of children are born with birthmarks, and opting to have them removed is difficult decision, requiring in depth and informed consideration from the family and if old enough, the child themselves. In very unusual cases, birth marks can be life threatening and call on the services of many departments in the hospital. Seven year old Daniel Kerr is one such case. He was born with a venus malformation on his neck, something that started as a visible purple vein, but over the years grew to such a stage that it started to put potentially fatal pressure on his airways. This is a highly unusual and complex case, and the Dermatolgy team in Crumlin work together with the Ear, Nose and Throat Department in their quest to find the optimal way to treat Daniel's condition. In order to reduce the malformation, the multidisciplinary team must use cutting edge laser treatments, the results of which often cause a swelling before a reduction. Consequently, it is decided that Daniel must be fitted with a tracheostomy to ensure he can breathe as the treatment is administered. Since the case is so unusual, the surgery requires a novel approach employing a combination of interventions that has never been att
