THE BUILD Jamaica Foundation (BJF) has launched a campaign to raise $20 million to purchase six ventilators for the Intensive Care Unit of the Bustamante Hospital for Children.
The ventilators are to be used by babies born prematurely and children with breathing problems up to the age of 12 years.
The BJF is a non-profit, non-political organisation, having as its mandate, the provision of the best possible Health Care and Education for our children, with the help of all Jamaicans at home and abroad.
The Bustamante Hospital for Children, is designed to provide all the medical care needed by children from birth to 12 years old.
A ventilator is a machine that breathes for children who are unable to do so by themselves. This situation arises in cases where premature birth takes place, and the lungs have not been developed and cannot function. Children with breathing problems such as asthma, and children who undergo major surgery, also need ventilators to breathe for them sometimes.
Such patients sometimes need to be ventilated as much as 24 hours per day for as long as 2 to 3 weeks and there has been one instance where a child needed to be on a ventilator for as long as 4 months.
At present, for every child ventilated there are two or three who cannot be accommodated due to the lack of ventilators.
With the Bustamante Hospital for Children expecting to start performing open-heart surgery shortly, another 30 to 40 children will need to be ventilated each year.
