Maternity & Pediatrics

BGHF sees a future where our smallest patients can lead a happy & healthy life, while our kids and teenagers receive first class care close to home.

Quinte Health Belleville General Hospital provides state of the art health care in obstetrical, postpartum, pediatric and neonatal inpatient and ambulatory services.

The hospital assists women and their families during the birth of about 1400 babies per year with services provided within the Proctor & Gamble Family Centre, situated within Quinte 7.

Opened in 2000, the Family Centre is equipped with:

• 11 ‘birthing rooms’ allowing the whole experience to take place in one room and accommodate family members.
• 2 additional antepartum pediatric rooms (with 5 beds).
• Operating room for caesarian sections
• High – risk room for difficult deliveries
• 2 specialized nurseries (one for pediatrics and a second for high risk newborns).
• 6 pediatric patient care rooms
• 6 cribbed pediatric nursery
• 1 care-by-parent room
• Procedure room for pediatric patients

QHC Regional Pediatric Consulting Group

Pediatricians are specialists within children’s healthcare. Our pediatric teams can be found working in a variety of settings in and around the hospital here at BGH.  Consultants are often working on Quinte 7 with inpatients, attending deliveries and seeing patients in consultants with Emergency Room doctors.

Pediatricians can also be found working within the Children’s Treatment Centre, Diabetes Clinic and specialist pediatric clinic located across the street from the hospital.  The teams receive referrals for many issues related to children’s health, including genetic syndromes, developmental disabilities, acute and chronic medical concerns to name but a few.

Younger patients require equipment and solutions that are not just smaller but designed specifically for their size, age, more delicate skin or particular level of comfort.

Kim’s story

When I called 911 I thought I was watching my youngest child die.  My name is Kim Crawford, and I am the mother of 4 kids.

When my last child arrived I believed I was a mom-pro. I had seen it all and never had a real emergency.  But last year was different. Just before Family Day weekend my husband was off to California for work, and my parents were staying over to help out. My youngest son Gordie was fussy with an earache and had a fever, but I was a mom-pro, and I was bringing it down with Tylenol. He was only one at the time. 

Suddenly, the fever spiked, and as I was putting Gordie to bed, his eyes rolled back and he started having a seizure. The next three minutes were the longest of my life. Shaking and trembling uncontrollably, Gordie turned blue and was struggling to breathe.

I called 911 and thought “my son is going to die.” 

As the ambulance was racing to my house, his seizure eased off, but he was still struggling to breathe and was unresponsive. When the super-calm ambulance attendant walked into my house, Gordie was breathing a bit better, but I was a wreck. 

We live close to BGH, and within minutes we arrived at the ER. At that moment the entire ER staff sprang into action to save Gordie. The ER doctor said his symptoms were similar to a febrile seizure, but Gordie was struggling to come out of it, and that had the doctor worried. The doctor got the tests started immediately, and Gordie was quickly having an X-ray.

I did not know what febrile seizures were, but I did know Gordie was still in danger. At this point, the nurse assigned to me connected with me mom to mom. She reassured me that febrile seizures were common in children, especially when kids have bad ear infections.

During those moments of the initial tests I had no idea that people donated the funds for all the equipment in the ER.

The tests on Gordie were inconclusive. At this point the pediatrician and the ER doc were conferring about the next steps. It was midnight, and I was scared. The pediatrician said we need to admit Gordie to be sure he was ok.  Once settled in a room, the pediatrician sat down with us.

She was a young mom like me. Her first question was, “How are you doing?” When I struggled to answer she said, “You did everything right.”  I wanted to cry after she said that – I had been doubting myself since Gordie started having the seizure. I thought it was my fault. She asked me to tell her about the whole day with Gordie and everything that happened. I spent 30 minutes telling her about my baby, and she made me feel like I was the only patient at BGH.

After the conversation, the pediatrician said Gordie’s symptoms and response during the seizure were outside of the norm. Then I was totally surprised because she got on the phone and called all her pediatrician friends around the province. I had no idea that doctors call each other like that!

The discussion was about whether more invasive tests were required, but the consensus from the whole doctor group was to observe for the night. I stayed up all night so I could watch over my baby.  By morning, Gordie was a bit better.

During the transition between hospital pediatricians it was decided that they wanted to observe Gordie for the rest of the day. All day the nursing staff arrived to ask if I needed anything, and they warmed up Gordie’s bottles for me. Eventually, Gordie was starting to act like a busy one-year-old, and early Monday morning we were ready to be discharged.

But I was in for one last surprise. The nursing staff sat with me to explain everything about discharging my son home. I was still scared because what if it happened again?  The nurse was amazing and asked if I was comfortable with all the information? I came to learn later this is called discharge planning, but I thought of it as mom-to-mom support.

I left the hospital and arrived home on Family Day morning. My husband had been delayed in Chicago with a snow storm, so he also arrived that morning. Family Day was always special, but holding Gordie made me so grateful for our local hospital and for my family.

I’ll be eternally grateful to the staff at BGH, please join me in supporting BGH with your gift today.

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