Ventilated Kids Trust

We are a relatively new charitable organisation (September 2015) created to support the integration of children on long term breathing support (ventilators) back into the community. These children usually have a variety of other needs and complex issues such as paralysis, wheel chairs, communication issues, life support equipment and require modified housing and carers in the home. Reintegrating them back into the community is a difficult process through the current health system, which is not well structured to deal with the processes involved.

Most children on ventilators are only supported in Intensive Care Units (ICU) which is the hospital’s most expensive area. The only paediatric ICU in New Zealand is at Starship Children’s Health, with an average daily cost (per child) of $5000, over $1.8 million per annum.

Long-term hospitalisation is inappropriate for a developing child, it puts them at risk of hospital acquired infection, is expensive, is detrimental to family functioning and relationships, is an unnecessary use of resources and blocks intensive care and medical specialty beds for other ill children, impacting the whole community nationally.

There are obvious advantages to all concerned, when care is transitioned to a community home based model. However, the variety of Government agencies, departments and district health boards involved, creates obstacles to successfully and quickly enable exiting from the hospital and moving these children home.

Our objective is to help facilitate the process of moving children to a home care environment. This will significantly reduce the burden on the health system, releasing approximately $4 million for other medical needs and free desperately needed Starship ICU beds.

There are high demands on charitable funds and this may appear to only benefit a small section of the community, however, if viewed from a wider perspective, there are significant benefits for children nationally. Freeing up significant health funding for children, needed space in the country’s only children’s hospital and reducing surgical delays with more available beds in ICU. Therefore, we would appreciate your consideration and would be thankful for any assistance you can provide.