The Garden City Telegram
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New equipment a plus for NBICU
Published 7/28/2009 in Pro-Am
By BRETT MARSHALL
In the beginning there was a small closet with barely any equipment that would sufficiently take care of the need at St. Catherine Hospital.
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Brad Nading/Telegram — The four pediatricians who treat the newborn babies at St. Catherine Hospital's Newborn Intensive Care Unit are (left to right) James Zauche, Michael Shull, Stephen Myers and Elizabeth Doyle. They are pictured with one of the newborn infants in an incubator. The doctors are assisted by seven nurses, and the NBICU is monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
It was just Dr. Gerald Meyers, who had a vision and a dream to bring quality critical care for babies to southwest Kansas at the Garden City medical facility.
More than 30 years later, he and Gayleen Brenal, Director of Maternal Child Services at St. Catherine, can see their dream a reality and bigger than either could have imagined.
"This has been a fantastic journey with the Unit," Meyers said of the Newborn Intensive Care Unit at St. Catherine Hospital. "We had about 10 percent of the space we now have and it was just me and one or two nurses who were not full time. We had extra (extension) cords all around, there were no ventilators, the monitors were crude and simplistic. It has changed dramatically over the years."
Meyers can look back with immense pride when he walks into the NBICU which was opened about five years ago and now has a seven-bed, Level II unit with nurses attending 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There are incubators, warmers, monitors, ventilators and a transport isolette.
All the equipment has been purchased with funds donated from the proceeds of the Southwest Kansas Pro-Am golf tournament, celebrating its 30th anniversary this week in Garden City.
"Without the Pro-Am, we couldn't have purchased the quality of equipment and expanded the beds that we have," Bernal said. "We have been able to progress with technology because the funds have been there for us to purchase the needed equipment, all because of the tournament."
Bernal said she could remember that tiny closet in the beginning years.
"We were all scrounged up and just tried to do the best we could," Bernal said. "We were converting adult monitors to use on the babies and they weren't as trusting as the ones we now have. I think every day I walk in here, I just look in amazement at what has been able to be accomplished and know that there have been so many people involved to make it all happen."
There have been more than 3,000 admissions during its three decades of operation according Bernal and Meyers. Many families have had more than one child admitted to the NBICU in that time.
"The service we provide has been able to prevent a lot of other problems for the babies and families," Brenal said. "Now, families can stay together here rather than the babies having to be sent off to Wichita and the parents go home. It's hard enough when they're here together so we're fortunate to have the unit."
Meyers recalled that initial time in 1977 when they were trying to gauge how busy the care unit might become.
"Our marketing was not too much, but we had been open four days and had our first baby arrive," Meyers said. "Most of the rest of the early days we got referrals by word of mouth. It just grew from there."
The most recent equipment that was purchased included an audiotory screener which cost $20,000 and another $30,000 provided an update to the unit's fetal monitoring system. On the short list of new equipment are cardiac monitors and incubators as well as possibly an infant warmer.
Meyers said so many different people have contributed to the success of the program, but he for sure said that the nurses were the critical personnel in daily ongoing care.
"Without the nurses, we just don't have the personnel to do what we've been able to do over the years," Meyers said. "They have just been super and everyone is committed to their work."
Meyers was especially pleased when he heard that Bob Whippo's two children — Lucas and Aubrey — both of whom are alumni of the NBICU, would be making the check presentation at this year's Pro-Am post-tournament ceremony. Whippo, the longtime CFO of St. Catherine and then the Area Mental Health Center, died last November of Stage IV renal cell cancer.
"He (Bob) was a special part of the community, of the hospital and was a great parent," Meyers said of Whippo. "He was an active part of our parent's group for many years. He saw most of the changes that were made and was aware of how much things had improved."
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