Soma Pujari our Co-Founder and Executive Trustee officially opened the new Kusuma Trust Special Care Baby Unit at St Bernard’s Hospital in Gibraltar on Tuesday. Thanks to funding from Kusuma, the new unit includes a cerebral function monitor, incubator, cooling and warming devices, two video laryngoscopes, mechanical ventilator and is home to Baby Paul, a state of the art baby simulator which has already been used to train doctors, nurses and midwives in Gibraltar and nearby Spain.

Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) is one of the leading causes of infant death. There is now substantial evidence that induced hypothermia (cooling) of newborn babies who may have suffered from a lack of oxygen at birth reduces death or disability, without increasing disability in survivors. In November last year the GHA undertook their first active cooling in a newborn critically sick baby in Gibraltar. Previously, these newborns would have to be transferred to the nearest Neonatal Intensive Care Unit which was approximately 1.5-2 hours away from Gibraltar.

The GHA Director General, Prof Patrick Geoghegan, said: “I am delighted that we have been able to officially open the brand new Kusuma Trust Special Care Baby Unit at the St Bernard’s Hospital. This is part of the GHA’s ongoing plan to repatriate as many services as possible to Gibraltar, thereby increasing the patient experience. I am particularly grateful to the Kusuma Trust for their very generous donation which has been fundamental in making this project a reality.”