The parents of a baby who suddenly turned blue four hours after birth and almost died praised a specialist London hospital today for its “amazing” care.
Charles Hanson was born by induced delivery two weeks after his due date at St Thomas’ Hospital on October 18 but soon fell ill.
His mother Maria Teresa Creasey said: “In four hours we went from the best moment of our life to the scariest moment of our life. He was immediately put on life support.”
Doctors at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital next door found Charles was suffering from a rare condition that closed a valve in his heart, restricting it from pumping oxygenated blood.
He gradually progressed through the neonatal unit’s three levels of care — high dependency, intensive and special — and last night was well enough to go home to Kennington.
Actress Ms Creasey said: “He was on a knife-edge for 10 days. The specialist care is pretty amazing.”
Today she and her partner Will Hanson welcomed a £3 million expansion of the neonatal unit.
Dr Tim Watts, the unit’s clinical lead, said it had gone from six high-dependency cots to 12 and from 16 intensive care cots to 22. In 2002 it had 34 cots and treated 524 babies.
“This year we will admit more than 1,000 babies for the first time,” he said.
Sir Hugh Taylor, chairman of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS trust, which runs Evelina, said: “This is a time of great difficulty for the NHS nationally.
"We are committed to growing and expanding our services so we can offer the best possible care to the biggest number, in this case babies, and to help people at an absolutely critical time in their lives — moments of darkness sometimes and of great joy as well.”
