Cuidado Intensivo de RN vs. UW NICU

The hospital is very flexible and accomodating to volunteers, lucky for me.  I mentioned that I like working with babies and they sent me to the department of RN (recién nacidos or newborns), which includes the postpartum and intensive care (cuidado intensivo) units.  I was so excited, first of all because I just love babies and second because in the States I've been volunteering in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) at the University of Washington.  I thought it would be so interesting to compare the same units in such different settings. 

The UW specializes in micro-preemies, the smallest and most premature babies, but they also care for bigger babies with health problems.  Every baby, no matter what their problem, is hooked up to a monitor that measures heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood oxygen levels.  The monitors have alarms that alert the nurses, for example, to a baby whose heart rate or oxygen levels have dropped suddenly.  There are usually six babies per large room, each with their own crib or incubator, and 2 or 3 nurses to a room, each assigned to specific patients.  There always has to be at least one nurse in the room if one leaves to go on break or has to retrieve something from another room.  The nurses are constantly charting, doing feedings and treatments, or simply checking in on their patients.

The UW NICU's counterpart in the public hospital here is.......different.  It is only one room, including a little connected "isolation" room, in total probably the size of one room at the UW.  I always put "isolation" in quotations because they don't seem to take many of the isolation precautions that I'm accustomed to when treating those patients, as I described in the previous post.  The big room has 3 incubators, 2 beds with lamps for light therapy, and 7 cribs made of metal tubes and plexiglass, all side by side.  The isolation room has 2 incubators and 3 cribs.  I love going on rounds with the very friendly doctora and 4 med students.  I listen to them discuss the baby's background, health issues, and treatment plan.  They have one pulse/ox monitor that they take around to each baby, clip onto the foot or hand, and record the heart rate and oxygen levels.  One baby's story was so sad: she was 3 months old but was very small because she was malnourished, and her skin was peeling and raw around her neck and chest.  Both of her parents are alcoholics.  The neighbor heard the baby crying for a while and so went to check on her, and basically found the baby abandoned in her home, which is when she brought her to the hospital.  In the week that I saw her, her skin improved immensely and she appeared to gain energy and strength.  Who knows what will happen to the baby when she's discharged.