Tayside Children's Hospital
Encyclopedia
Children's hospital
A children's hospital is a hospital which offers its services exclusively to children . The number of children's hospitals proliferated in the 20th century, as pediatric medical and surgical specialties separated from internal medicine and adult surgical specialties...
in Dundee
Dundee
Dundee is the fourth-largest city in Scotland and the 39th most populous settlement in the United Kingdom. It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
and is attached to Ninewells Hospital
Ninewells Hospital
Ninewells Hospital is one of the largest teaching hospitals in Europe, based on the western edge of Dundee, Scotland. It is internationally renowned for introducing laparoscopic surgery to the UK as well as being a leading centre in developing fields such as the management of cancer, medical...
. It serves children, age from birth up until their fourteenth birthday, 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.
The facility, which cost ten million pounds to fund, was formally opened on 7 June 2006 in a ceremony involving television celebrity
Celebrity
A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...
Fred MacAulay, University of Dundee
University of Dundee
The University of Dundee is a university based in the city and Royal burgh of Dundee on eastern coast of the central Lowlands of Scotland and with a small number of institutions elsewhere....
principal Sir Alan Langlands, nurses, doctors and young patients. 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
National Health Service
The National Health Service is the shared name of three of the four publicly funded healthcare systems in the United Kingdom. They provide a comprehensive range of health services, the vast majority of which are free at the point of use to residents of the United Kingdom...
and Dundee University funds and with money raised by various children's charity
Charitable organization
A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization . It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization (NPO). It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A...
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
Maternity
Maternity or motherhood is the social and legal acknowledgment of the parental relationship between a mother and her child.It is specially related with the protection of the baby and the mother within and after the childbirth.-See also:...
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. Clinical research into conditions such as cystic fibrosis
Cystic fibrosis
Cystic fibrosis is a recessive genetic disease affecting most critically the lungs, and also the pancreas, liver, and intestine...
, asthma
Asthma
Asthma is the common chronic inflammatory disease of the airways characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and bronchospasm. Symptoms include wheezing, coughing, chest tightness, and shortness of breath...
, 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, Tayside Children's Hospital is more accurately described as being a children's unit within an adult hospital. It holds the term 'children's hospital' purely due to the research department and to better justify the closure of the children's ward and special baby care unit at Perth Royal Infirmary
Perth Royal Infirmary
Perth Royal Infirmary is a district hospital in Perth. The Royal Infirmary, administered by NHS Tayside, caters for both the city and wider Perth & Kinross area, with a population around 182 000, being served by the hospital.-History:...
. The money intended for an actual children's hospital was instead diverted to the reconstruction of Royal Aberdeen Children's Hospital
Royal Aberdeen Children's Hospital
The Royal Aberdeen Children's Hospital or RACH is a children's hospital in Aberdeen, Scotland. It is situated on the Foresterhill site, with the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and Aberdeen Maternity Hospital...
.