The McGill University Health Centre’s Glen Campus will be one of only a few hospitals in Quebec to provide full-service adult and pediatric specialties under the same roof and thus be able to care for patients throughout their entire lifespan.
“On the Glen Campus, we will be able to provide the full spectrum of tertiary and quaternary care and services to pregnant moms, newborns, and senior citizens alike,” says Dr. Harvey Guyda, Associate Executive Director of The Montreal Children’s Hospital. “This will be clearly beneficial to all of our patients, and particularly so for women and newborns associated with high-risk births.”
Dr. Guyda points out the women’s health mission, birthing centre and post-partum unit will be located right next to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in the new Montreal Children’s, thus creating the ideal clinical environment for women and their newborns. Services for Women’s Health will be located on the sixth floor of the MUHC adult facility and for Newborn Medicine on the sixth floor of the high tech B Block of the Montreal Children’s Hospital. Both facilities will be easily accessible via a passageway that will link the two buildings.
Most often when both a mother and her newborn need full-service, specialized care, they must receive it in two different hospitals. This is far from the ideal situation for mom or baby. In addition, it is very difficult for the family who must divide its time between two separate hospitals.
Integrated Mother and Child Care
“The MUHC’s outstanding team of physicians, nurses, dieticians and numerous other allied health professionals will be able to take care of an expectant mum with complex medical needs as well as those of her newborn child,” says Dr. Robert Gagnon, Director of Obstetrics and Maternal Fetal Medicine at the Royal Victoria Hospital of the MUHC.
“This is very important, because the close proximity of newborns to their parent reduces stress and promotes healing.” Dr. Gagnon notes that at the Glen Campus, the Department of Medical Genetics that conducts pre-natal diagnosis and other related sub-specialties such as Fetal Medicine will be closely linked to the Women’s Health Department, providing patients with access to truly multi-disciplinary care.
Neonatal Amalgamation
Currently, MUHC Neonatology Services are located at The Montreal Children’s Hospital and the
Royal Victoria Hospital. They provide advanced tertiary and quaternary care to newborns. In preparation for the move to the Glen, the multidisciplinary members of the two neonatology teams are working collaboratively together to develop harmonized practices, flow plans and protocols. This important transitional phase will ensure the team is fully operational on the new campus. Dr. Gagnon says an added bonus for staff and physicians of being located side-by-side is the ability to communicate more easily and the ability to call on each other for immediate assistance and counsel when the need arises.
On the Glen Campus, everyone will benefit from private patient rooms. This contrasts sharply with the current open ward design of the NICUs which are often noisy and crowded. The single patient rooms will give families the opportunity to have quality private time with their newborn. A few NICU rooms are being designed to accommodate multiple births so parents will not have to move from room to room to take care of their newborns.
“The benefits of having Maternal Health, Fetal Medicine, Perinatology and Neonatology located one next to the other are innumerable. It will be a boon for our health professionals who currently work in separated clinical teams and for our patients and families who will be able to move seamlessly between all of the services the MUHC provides,” says Dr. Guyda.
