MUMS and babies are doing well at Bradford Royal Infirmary's new £2 million neonatal department.

More than 150 guests were there today to celebrate the official opening of the new-look unit.

It now has 31 cots, including ten for intensive and high dependency care, following a rebuild of the old baby unit.

Lord Kamlesh Patel, chairman of Bradford TeachingHospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said "cutting the cord" at the ceremony was a great honour.

Lord Patel, whose first grandchild has just been born at the hospital, said the new neonatal unit was "a fabulous facility" and would make the world of difference to so many premature and poorly babies.

"But what makes it tick is the fantastic staff. Without them this place would not work," he said.

The redesign includes more space round each incubator with screens and reclining chairs for nursing mums giving skin-to-skin kangeroo care, new family accommodation, a revamped counselling suite, a play room for older siblings and a dedicated room for mothers to express breast milk for their pre-term babies.

For consultant neonatologist Dr Chris Day, who started work on the BRI Neonatal unit almost two decades ago, the opening was the culmination of many years’ vision and work.

He said over the past six years the unit had cared for more than 30,000 babies from around the Yorkshire and Humber.

"Today is a huge milestone in our history as a unit," said Dr Day.

"This investment has been long-awaited and much anticipated by, not only our staff, but by the families who use our facilities. It is, after all, their insight which has helped re-design and develop a new unit which works for them and meets their needs, as well as working around the treatment and care of our sick babies.

"Our families are the single most important thing to us. It is an honour to see how a newly improved and enhanced environment for every baby in need of our expert care will help us to deliver the best conditions for our patients.”

Bradford Hospitals Charity also donated nearly £90,000 of medical equipment and furnishings to help save more tiny lives and makes families’ time on the unit more comfortable.

Among the guests were York mum Claire Bebb, who had come to Bradford one year ago when twins Maisy and Hattie were born at 25 weeks as her nearest hospitaldid not have facilities for babies born before 28 weeks.

Also there was Helen Gibson, of Harrogate, with son Jack, now nine-months-old, who had been born four months early and spent 25 days on a ventilator at the unit.

Survival rates for pre-term babies have soared over the last decade. Advances in medicine mean that up to 80 per cent of these premature babies will live and quickly catch up with their peers who were born at full gestation.

Twins Rebecca Violet and Abigail Rose are two of the newest arrivals on the unit.

Their parents Chris and Lyndsey Fleetwood travel daily to see them from Huddersfield and are looking forward to taking them home. Born at 25 weeks, Rebecca was 1lb 14oz and Abigal 1lb 7oz.

Mr Fleetwood said: "The girls are doing brilliantly, they are making lots of progress. It's such a brilliant facility here. It fills us with immense confidence."

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