Parents at the bedside of a sick child in the hospital intensive care unit. Not for five minutes, not for an hour, but around the clock. Not from behind a window, but directly. Touch, closeness, and the very presence of a parent have a therapeutic effect on the child. In Rabka-Zdrój, it works.
Olaf is in intensive care in the hospital in Rabka-Zdrój, where he is constantly receiving oxygen. His father is constantly busy next to his bed, because the doctors there know well how important it is for a child to have a parent close to him.
– He is already trying to speak a little, but he is severely delayed in development, so it is very important to us that he did not lose these one and a half months, did not regress, but moved forward – says Olaf's father, Paweł Szczepański.
The boy is being treated and developing at the same time, because the father and mother can take turns being with him all the time. They can even sleep with him. Doctors allow this, because a child with a parent recovers faster.
– We are able to treat pain. We are able to ensure that the patient's procedures and post-operative stay are painless, but that is not all that a child needs. A child needs a sense of security – says Wojciech Szatkowski, a specialist in anesthesiology and intensive care at the Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases, Rabka-Zdrój branch.
Children are sometimes put to sleep in hospitals so they don't cause any trouble.
Easier said than done. In many hospitals, intensive care units do not have the space to create such conditions for each child: to allocate a separate room, and even a couch for the parent. Most often, the bed is next to the bed. Olaf had previously been in just such a place in another hospital.
– It looks completely different. Children are given sleeping pills so that they can lie still – says Paweł Szczepański. It happens that children in intensive care are given sleeping pills just so that they don't cause any trouble.
– Colleagues are forced to sedate children or put them to sleep to protect themselves from their own actions, which is largely due to the stress that a child experiences when separated from a parent – explains Wojciech Szatkowski.
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For a child connected to equipment, the absence of a parent is a real nightmare, a trauma that can remain for the rest of their life. Stressed children, not fully understanding their situation, sometimes refuse to cooperate with the staff, rip out IVs and tubes. In Rabka-Zdrój, Mrs. Taisiia Hutsuliak is preparing to spend the night with her son.
– The child is with me 24 hours a day. I can't even imagine how I could leave my child here and she couldn't come in – says Taisiia Hutsuliak, Jan's mother.
Performing anaesthetic procedures on children while their parents watch is difficult for nurses and doctors. In Rabka-Zdrój, they realize that not everywhere in the country can such a model of stress-free treatment for a child be implemented. However, they tried.
– I would like to appeal to my fellow anaesthesiologists who would like to work with children and would like to work in this model to simply contact us and help us – he sums up.
Main image source: TVN24