The CHU Sainte-Justine’s NICU is the largest neonatal care facility in Canada. It has a capacity of 65 beds and treats 1 100 patients each year. The NICU delivers care to pre-term neonates and full-term infants with defects, infections, and asphyxia, two thirds of whom come to the NICU from local obstetrics units and one third of whom are transferred from other hospital centres by our own transport team.
The NICU has 27 intensive care beds and 38 intermediate care beds. It provides neonatal medical and surgical treatment and delivers the full range of secondary, tertiary and quaternary care services. The facility possesses all the supports needed to compensate for immature organ systems: respiratory (lungs), cardiovascular (heart and circulation), renal (kidney), hepatic (liver) and cerebral (brain). The most commonly treated conditions are prematurity, respiratory distress, shock, heart defects, neonatal malformations, and complex syndromes.
The neonatal intensive care team is involved at every stage in a sick baby’s life from prenatal counseling to neonatal resuscitation to acute care of all types to long-term monitoring. The NICU is outfitted with the most advanced monitoring and medical equipment available.
It is a university teaching facility where visiting, resident and future neonatologists are provided with clinical training, and where a broad range of research initiatives are carried out: molecular, physiological, clinical and epidemiological research projects.
The NICU’s multidisciplinary neonatal care team is composed of neonatologists, expert consultants in all pediatric and surgical subspecialties, nurses, auxiliary nurses, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, psychologists, nutritionists, social workers, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, breastfeeding consultants, and neonatal nurse specialists.
Neonatology Clinic
The CHU Sainte-Justine Neonatology Clinic provides post-hospitalisation monitoring services following a stay in the neonatology intensive care unit. This super-specialised clinic takes care of prematurely born infants and those hospitalised due to complex pathologies.
The CHU Sainte-Justine Neonatology Clinic is part of the Québec Research Consortium on Prematurely Born Infants, which encompasses all of the neonatal clinics in the province. The data collected through this network will lead to a reliable and updated survival rate, and information on the health of prematurely born infants within the province.
Learn more:
Association québécoise pour les enfants prématurés:
Préma-Québec