Tayside Children's Hospital

Tayside Children's Hospital is a children's hospital in Dundee, Scotland and is attached to Ninewells Hospital. It serves children who live in Dundee, Angus, Perth and Kinross and north east Fife and, as such, it was so named after a region rather than a city to reflect the wide area that it covers. [cite web | author=BBC | title=Dundee children's hospital opens | date=2006-06-06 | url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/5053450.stm | accessdate=2007-02-02 ]

The facility, which cost ten million pounds to fund, was formally opened on 7 June 2006 in a ceremony involving television celebrity Fred MacAulay, University of Dundee principal Sir Alan Langlands, nurses, doctors and young patients. [cite web | author=Medical News Today | title=Opening Of Tayside Children's Hospital | date=2006-11-06 | url=http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=44926 | accessdate=2007-02-02 ] The hospital combines medical services for children aged from prenatal to fourteen years of age with research departments specialising in paediatrics, and was financed by NHS and Dundee University funds and with money raised by various children's charity organisations. The major driver behind TICH was the professor of Child Health Richard Olver, who spent a considerable period of his latter years in post campaigning for funds from charities and the public sector.

Included within the hospital are Ward 29 (the children's medical ward), Ward 30 (the children's surgical ward), Ward 40 (the neonatal unit), a high dependency unit, the maternity department, children's surgical rooms, a children's outpatient clinic, an ambulatory bay and a Maternal and Child Health clinic. There are also an outdoor play area/garden and an indoor play centre, which also houses an area that provides entertainment equipment aimed specifically at adolescents, as well as Ronald McDonald suites for families to reside in while their child is hospitalised. [cite web | author=Dundee University | title=Tayside Children's Hospital Opening day 7th June 2006 | date=2006-06-06 | url=http://www.dundee.ac.uk/mchs/tich/opening.html | accessdate=2007-02-02 ] Clinical research into conditions such as cystic fibrosis, asthma, diabetes, prematurity, etc is conducted at the unit in the hopes of developing further treatments and better enable medication trials that would normally only be offered to adults.

The idea of a children's hospital in Dundee had been considered since 1995 but, although the children's wards under went major upgrading, [cite web | author=Tayside NHS Board | title=Tayside Institute of Child Health Phase 2 | date=2003-03-13 | url=http://www.nhstayside.scot.nhs.uk/about_nhstay/meetings/board_meet/20030313/nhst%20tich.pdf | accessdate=2007-02-02 ] Tayside Children's Hospital is more accurately described as being a children's unit within an adult hospital. The money intended for an actual children's hospital was instead diverted to the reconstruction of Royal Aberdeen Children's Hospital.Fact|date=August 2008

Notes

External links

* [http://www.nhstayside.scot.nhs.uk/ NHS Tayside]
* [http://www.eyeline-media.co.uk/video/Anaesthesia-Jane.wmv Education video about a paediatric patient's admittance to Ward 30]
* [http://www.dundee.ac.uk/ The University of Dundee]
* [http://www.radiolollipop.org/stationinfo.asp Radio Lollipop's page for Tayside Children's Hospital]
* [http://www.rmhc.com/rmhc/index.html Ronald McDonald House website]