CDH/Infant Lung Multidisciplinary Clinic – The Children’s Hospital Westmead
To help families access the CDH/Infant Lung Multidisciplinary Clinic at The Children’s Hospital Westmead, we have provided some information below. If you have any questions please email information@cdh.org.au.
1. Contact is via Associate Professor Dominic Fitzgerald secretary, Debra, on 02 9845 3397.
2. The referral should be made to Associate Professor Dominic Fitzgerald, Dept of Respiratory Medicine, The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Locked Bag 4001, Westmead, NSW 2145.
Note:
- A specialist to specialist referral is only good for 3 months, so it is probably best to have a referral from the patients GP as this usually lasts for 12 months (or indefinitely if so documented). The clinic will generally be once monthly, on a Thursday morning (February to December).
- A neurodevelopmental follow-up can be arranged via the Grace Centre for Newborn Care
3. Children from all over Australia are welcome. Obviously a little of teeing up, perhaps with a telephone call to ensure that everybody is in the hospital on the particular day for long distance patients.
4. There will be a number of checks for each patient depending upon age. People involved may be neonatologists, paediatric cardiologists, paediatric surgeon and an interventional radiologist. We are hoping to have a physiotherapist and dietician but this is not in place as yet.
5. If other problems are found, the children will be referred on to other specialists (eg. Orthopaedic surgeons for scoliosis).
6. This is a local initiative of the doctors involved meeting a perceived need. Unfortunately there is no funding from the hospital as yet for staff (eg. physiotherapist or dietician). Any transport costs would need to be met by the families or assistance of state funding agencies sought. For those in NSW who live more than 200km away there is a support scheme called IPTAS (Isolated Patients Transport and Accommodation Services) to help. Local paediatricians, physicians and GPs can fill this request which is signed by the specialist in Sydney.
7. Data that exists from some overseas centres, for CDH and other chronic respiratory conditions such as cystic fibrosis, suggests that patients with uncommon chronic conditions are best helped by multi-disciplinary teams in large centres with the most individual and collective experience. The doctors involved have extensive experience in managing children with chronic respiratory and cardiac conditions.
8. “Children” up to age 18 years can be seen easily in the clinic.
