Travelling for Treatment
Facing the prospect of your child’s heart surgery is terrifying, particularly if you have to travel away from your home and your support network. Although it is impossible to remove all of your concerns, we have some services that might help guide and support you and your family.
Why must we travel for surgery?
Paediatric cardiac surgery provision was removed from Belfast in 2014. The majority of children in Northern Ireland receive cardiac catheterisation and cardiac surgeries at Children’s Health Ireland, Crumlin in Dublin as part of the new All Island Paediatric Cardiology Network.
Some children who have had previous cardiac surgeries in England, have very rare conditions or are awaiting a heart transplant, may need to travel to specialist hospitals in Birmingham, London or Newcastle.
To help ease some of the anxieties associated with travelling for heart surgery, we have created a Travelling for Treatment Pack detailing everything you will need to know about the practicalities of travelling outside of Northern Ireland for peadiatric cardiac care and how we can support you during this time.
Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions.
Travelling for Treatment
This pack will tell you all you need to know about what you can expect while travelling for treatment or surgery.
Ambulance transfers
For some children, travelling to and from a surgical centre will occur via ambulance. Ambulance transfers usually happen if your child is already an inpatient in a hospital or is being transferred from a surgical centre outside of Northern Ireland to complete recovery at a local hospital within Northern Ireland. Look at this great video from NISTAR explaining what happens during a typical ambulance transfer.
Play and Prepare Sessions
Helping you prepare your child and your family for upcoming hospital stays and procedures through play-based activities.
For a lot of children who have experienced long term hospital admissions or invasive procedures, the thought of going back into to hospital can cause big feelings of stress and anxiety prompted by fear. In order to help children, their parents and the entire family unit for upcoming hospital visits, we are working in partnership with the Play Department at RBHSC to help parents to prepare through play!
Our trained Family Support Worker is available to visit you and your family in the safe, familiar surroundings of your own home to pass on some helpful, age appropriate activities and play based techniques you could use to help familiarise your child with some of the real equipment that may be used in hospital and people they may meet through the use of role play, toys and craft based activities. Our Family Support Worker can also open up a referral pathway to the Play Specialist on Clark Clinic.
To find out more about Play and Prepare sessions, complete the contact us form below.
Contact us
If you’d like more info on any of the ways you can get involved, get in touch below. Complete the contact form below and a member of our team will be in touch!
Testimonial
“Children’s Heartbeat Trust helped me financially while we were away for surgery. They asked me for updates and seemed like they cared for every single person going through it.”