Overcrowding in the healthcare system is impacting the well-being of newborn babies, a new study suggests. According to this, the more neonatal intensive care units are filled, the higher the risk of serious complications in very premature babies.
“For example, when the bed occupancy rate is at 50% of unit capacity, the percentage of serious complications is 30%. This percentage rises to 40% when 80% of the beds are occupied, and to 50% when the unit is at 110% capacity,” says the tenured professor at the Faculty of Medicine and researcher at the Center de recherche du CHU of Quebec, Bruno Piedboeuf.
In recent months, his group, led by neonatologist and epidemiologist at McGill University’s Faculty of Medicine Marc Beltempo, has analyzed the cases of “1,870 children born between the 23e week and the 32e week of pregnancy. These newborns are essentially “very premature” or “very premature” according to the standards of the World Health Organization (WHO).
The subjects studied must also have been admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit in Quebec. Result: of the 1,870 babies, “823 had serious complications, including 153 deaths,” reads the study led by Mr. Piedboeuf. “The main pathologies reported affected the lungs, the nervous system, the digestive system and the eyes,” it says.
45% risk at full capacity
Ultimately, the risk of serious complications reaches 45% in extremely premature babies when all the beds in a unit are occupied. Moreover, this risk of serious complications would increase especially “during the first shift and during the first 24 hours following the admission of the child”. The study could therefore well “reflect a lack of resources during peak periods”, according to the professor.
But all is not black for all that. “There has been a lot of technical improvement” in recent years, says Mr. Piedboeuf, pointing out that the survival rate of premature babies born after the 28e week is now 95%, a marked improvement over past decades.
Nevertheless, adds the doctor, the fact remains that the study shows that “there is still work to be done on the side of the organization of work to ensure better care for very premature babies” in Quebec. Note that the study in question was made public on Tuesday in the international scientific journal Archives of Disease in Childhood: Fetal & Neonatal.
“Very premature babies have fragile health and we must constantly watch over them. The reaction time of the nursing staff is crucial. Ideally, there should be a ratio of one nurse or one nurse per child to ensure optimal care, ”also says Mr. Piedbœuf, whose conclusions should be transmitted to the authorities.
In September 2021, The Press reported that the “marked increase” in the number of births, combined with the lack of staff, is pushing neonatal care units on edge, to the point of forcing parents of premature babies to give birth hundreds of kilometers from home. The Préma-Québec organization, whose mission is to improve the quality of life of premature babies, is calling for a sort of legal status for premature babies, which would recognize their right to be cared for closer to home.