THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, December 22, 1994 TAG: 9412220576
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DEBRA GORDON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
Somewhere in Moscow is a tiny baby girl who bears the decidedly un-Russian name of Elizabeth.
She's named not after a grandmother or even a close friend, but after the young American pediatric resident from Norfolk who helped deliver her and her two siblings, born 10 weeks premature on a cold October day in a Moscow hospital.
Babies and mother are all doing ``excellent,'' Elizabeth's Russian doctor, Dr. Vadim Kuzneytzov, said Tuesday as he prepared to return to Russia after spending two weeks at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters. ``And they all say hello to you.''
The triplets' delivery was the latest highlight of a joint effort by King's Daughters and the Russian Ministry of Health to improve the care provided to Moscow's premature babies.
The 2-year-old program, funded with a $1.5 million grant from the federal Agency for International Development, was originally supposed to help Russia's largest children's hospital fight infant mortality through education, training and equipment. The plans would have included the construction of a six-bed neonatal intensive care unit.
But it has evolved into a regional program affecting up to 15 of Moscow's hospitals.
This fall, a King's Daughters delegation was in Moscow to help the Russians establish a neonatal network similar to one it organized in Hampton Roads.
In that program, medical staff members in community hospitals are trained to treat premature infants who don't need the highly specialized care of a neonatal intensive care unit.
The training is important, says King's Daughters neonatologist Dr. Jamil Khan, who was in Russia in October, because in a huge city like Moscow - with more than 10 million residents - the demand for NICU beds exceeds the supply. As a result, very sick babies are often transferred from major city hospitals to community hospitals just days after birth. The medical professionals in outlying hospitals need to know how to care for these infants, Khan said.
The expansion of the project from a focus on one hospital to a regional medical network is good news to Robert E. Garris Jr. He directs the International Center for Children's Health, which oversees the joint program.
``The central idea is that we have a vast knowledge of caring for sick babies, and we wanted to share it,'' Garris said, explaining why Children's Health System, the parent company of Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters, wanted to start the partnership with the Russians.
``And, it's a chance for our physicians and nurses to learn about other systems, to see how much they do over there with so few resources.''
But most of the benefit flows to the Russians. This is not to suggest that Moscow didn't have quality neonatal care before the partnership, Kuzneytzov said. ``We have neonatal units very similar to what you have here,'' he said.
But the Russians do have problems with continuity of care and with access to the NICU beds. A neonatal center to be built next year will help, said Kuzneytzov. He spent part of his recent visit huddled with the architects who designed the $72 million King's Daughters addition, which opened in August.
Another enormous benefit to the Russians is the translation into Russian of up-to-date training manuals on infant resuscitation.
``Our staff has been studying them very carefully and with great pleasure,'' Kuzneytzov said. by CNB