New ambulance, baby warmers and high-tech stretchers highlight Telethon’s commitment to continuity of care

In the winter of 2025, Samantha and her husband Tim went in for their 12-week pregnancy scan.

They were excited to see their first child, hear the heartbeat and to finally share the news with family and friends that they would soon be welcoming a baby.

“We were so excited to finally see her,” Samantha says. “We went in assuming the pregnancy would be all normal.

“But I could just tell from the sonographer’s face that something wasn’t quite right.

“They couldn’t tell us what was happening and we only found out the extent of it when we had a specialist ultrasound the following week and I just remember us both being in shock.”

Baby Millie was diagnosed with a congenital diaphragmatic hernia, a serious birth defect that can cause the abdominal organs — the stomach, intestines and liver — to move into the chest cavity.

This would affect Millie’s lung development and prevent her from being able to breathe properly, or at all, once born.

“We were devastated when we got the diagnosis and from that point on we were referred to the maternal fetal medicine team at King Edward Memorial Hospital,” Samantha, who lives in the State’s South West, says.

“We tried our best to push our worries aside and instead count every week that we made it to as a blessing, and we just tried to keep focusing on that because we were just so fearful of what was going to happen when she arrived.”

Millie was going to require a team of specialists at birth, immediate ventilation to help her breathe, a giraffe warmer to maintain her thermal balance, and transfer by ambulance from Samantha’s bedside at KEMH to the Perth Children’s Hospital neonatal intensive care unit.

The team responsible for transferring and caring for Millie between the hospitals would be WA’s Newborn Emergency Transport Service, whose role it is to move fragile babies needing urgent specialist care that is not available where they are born.

Dr Jonathan Davis, medical director at NETS WA, says some babies are transported from remote and regional hospitals, and others between Perth hospitals, either by ambulance, chopper or plane.

“Babies can pop out and surprise you and we do our best with the equipment that is provided,” Dr Davis says.

“The vast majority of babies transported will have some form of respiratory distress or lung problem and just by improving how the steps are carried out and making it simpler and more straightforward for staff, it makes it safer for babies to get the care they need as quickly as they can.”

For years Telethon, with the support of the WA community, has been investing in newborn emergency transport to help ensure sick newborns reach specialist care when they need it most.

The team now have ultra-modern Stryker stretchers, reflecting Telethon’s long-term commitment to continuity of care for critically ill newborns.

“These upgrades mean we can really focus on the most important aspect, which is looking after the baby rather than worrying about how things are going to fit together,” NETS WA nurse Amy Crawford says.

When Samantha was induced at KEMH in February, she was told she may not hear Millie cry. She was also warned that she may not get the chance to cuddle her.

“When I had Millie there was a team all ready for her which included the obstetrician, midwives, a neonatologist and the neonatal team who were literally waiting outside the door when it was time for her to come,” Samantha says.

“We’d been preparing for her to be immediately taken from us to be ventilated but we got a cuddle and we also heard her cry — something we never thought we’d hear — so it was very special.

“But then they had to take her away to the NICU and the NETS team transferred her quite quickly to PCH because she was very unwell by that point and needed two very high-risk surgeries, which ended up saving her life.”

Now eight weeks old, Millie’s life is already peppered with milestone moments.

Eyes wide open, looking at the big bright world, she’s breathing on her own.

Her digestive system and heart, which were both affected by CDH, are working well and she’s been discharged from hospital.

“She’s even breastfeeding almost exclusively now,” Samantha says.

“If we’d had her in the hospital in our country town like we’d planned, or if we were in another country, and if she didn’t get that transport, the reality is we would not have her with us.

“The continuity of care she received thanks to her medical team and the equipment donated by Telethon meant her care went as smoothly as possible, from the moment she was born and put into the giraffe warmer that kept her as stable as she could be through to going on the Stryker in the ambulance to PCH.

“When I think about Telethon and how far Millie has come, we could not be more grateful to everyone who donated and contributed to her care.”