Miss Penny Bee1, Ms Jacinda Duffy
1Te Whatu Ora Waitaha/Canterbury Air Retrieval Service
Biography:
Penny Bee
Penny Bee is a Registered Midwife currently working at Christchurch Women’s Hospital on the Birthing Suite and Maternity Ward. She studied her Diploma of Midwifery at Sheffield University in the United Kingdom graduating in 1997. Following this Penny has worked as a Registered Midwife in the United Kingdom and New Zealand as a core midwife. Penny has worked as a Flight Midwife since 2000. Penny is currently a senior member of the Midwifery Retrieval Service at Christchurch Women’s Hospital. This role involves transferring women by road ambulance or air retrieval via fixed wing plane or helicopter between hospitals in New Zealand. These transfers or retrievals are required to facilitate women needing higher level of care mostly due to prematurity.
Penny has also completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Perinatal Mental Health in 2010 at Otago University. Penny uses this knowledge to support women transferring from their home to another hospital.
Jacinda Duffy
Jacinda Duffy is Registered Nurse currently working in The Christchurch Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. She studied her Bachelor of Nursing in Invercargill New Zealand, graduating in 2004. Following this she moved to Australia where she worked in Adalaide, practicing medical nursing, surgical nursing, and intensive care nursing. In 2008 Jacinda returned to NZ where she continued in ICU, including cardiac and paediatric ICU. Since 2015 Jacinda has been nursing in a busy level three Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in Christchurch Women’s Hospital. Currently she is a senior member of the Christchurch Neonatal Transport Team, retrieving neonates from birthing centres around the South Island who require intensive care. These transports include road transfers by ambulance, and air retrievals via plane and helicopter. Alongside Nursing Jacinda continues studying. She is following the Neonatal Nurse Practitioner Pathway at Auckland University of Technology, working towards her goal of becoming a Neonatal Nurse Practitioner.
Abstract:
At 1400hrs on 29/11/2023 a call was made to the Midwife Manager at Christchurch Women’s Hospital from a visiting obstetrician at Chatham Island Medical Centre some 862km east of Christchurch that a woman 27 weeks pregnant was having an antepartum haemorrhage on Pitt Island a remote island 45 nautical km from the Medical Centre at Chatham Island. Telecommunication services were not working (as sometimes happens in this remote area) Normally a patient would be transferred by a small Cessna 206 aircraft or a local boat. Both of these options were unavailable and the only boat available was a fishing trawler which was not set up for medical retrieval. A team consisting of the local General Practitioner and 2 nurses were dispatched to assess and transfer the woman to Chatham Medical Centre where a visiting Obstetrician would be able to make a full assessment of the clinical situation. This mission would take 2 hours. In the meantime, a full-scale logistical assessment of transport options to Christchurch for the woman were being made by the Canterbury Air Retrieval Service (CARS). This assessment required complex logistical requirements as it would require 2 fixed wing aircraft, a midwife, ICU/Flight nurse, Neonatal SMO, transport nurse with an incubator as it was unknown if the baby would deliver prior to the arrival of the retrieval team. Other considerations were that we would have to take emergency blood for both mother and baby as Chatham Medical Centre only has limited O Negative blood (2 units). The other major logistical consideration was that the second aircraft would be the Challenger 604 Jet which was not set up to take the Neonatal incubator. If baby was in-utero on return all team members would have to travel on the jet without an incubator.