Being concerned about children`s suffering from a congenital heart disease

In the summer of 1997, a working group consisting of pediatric nurses from cardiology and the University Pediatric Intensive Care Unit Clinic Münster (Germany) was founded. Our task is to prepare children with congenital heart disease and their parents for the operation and their stay in the intensive care unit.

The idea for the working group began because the need for further education in anesthesia and intensive medicine was recognised. We understand parental fears and concerns about their children’s forthcoming heart operation. We would like to provide you with more information and allow you to be more confident during your child’s stay with us.

Every 6 weeks we carry out an information afternoon here in our clinic to which the patients scheduled for an operation are invited with their parents.

Parents at the information afternoon

Our little patients are going to be prepared for their operation and intensive care in a manner which is age appropriate. Parents get the opportunity to express their wishes, fears and ideas and to exchange experiences in the conversation with each other and the members of the working group.

A slide lecture will tell you what is going to happen on the first day in the clinic and on the operation day, what a child intensive care unit looks like and how far you will be involved in the post operative care of your child. For the well-being of our patients it is important for us with the help of specific information to arrange confidence which is then passed on to your children. If the situation of the child intensive care unit allows it, we end the afternoon with a tour of the ward. You will thus get to know the premises and the staff that who will be taking care of your child.

You will receive the invitation for one of our information afternoons automatically as soon as your child is scheduled for an operation. You can also contact us directly. Our patients` brothers and sisters are also very welcome, there is also the possibility of child support.

At the moment this kind of information before a heart operation is practiced only at the Heart Center Münster.

Anna after the operation

Certainly, we will not be able to take your fears away, but we may succeed in disproving negative prejudices and providing information about the hospital stay your child will complete.

Because: "What I have felt and grasped, seen before, and smelled, is no longer so dangerous..."

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