Anaesthetics and peri-operative medicine
Monash Children’s at Southern Health provides tertiary and general paediatric care to a large proportion of children in Melbourne. It is situated in the south eastern corner of Melbourne where there is a large number of young families. The number of surgical operations performed on children is over a third of the surgical workload at the Royal Children’s Hospital.Monash Children's has a dedicated team of paediatric anaesthetists who care for children before, during and after surgery. Most of us are full time staff at Monash Medical Centre. We have had special training in children’s anaesthesia including the handling of newborns. We care for extremely small premature babies to children up to 18 years of age. Our world-renowned newborn intensive care unit supports infants who need special care in their early lives. Sometimes these sick infants require surgical interventions, during which they are cared for by our anaesthetic team.
We provide paediatric anaesthesia services to several campuses of the Southern Health network including Monash Medical Centre Clayton campus and Casey Hospital. We also provide extensive anaesthetic service and support to places outside the operating theatres such as radiology, cardiology, endoscopy units and the Children’s Cancer Centre.
Monash Medical Centre is a large hospital with many specialties and facilities for both adults and children. This means that the expertise and facilities used in adult practice can help improve the care of children. Senior anaesthetic doctors in training come to Monash and the Royal Children’s Hospital for their paediatric experience.
We run a very efficient day surgery centre for children’s surgery at Casey Hospital, as well as surgery for in-patients, for the rapidly growing areas of Melbourne. This means easy access for large number of families. Monash Medical Centre Clayton campus provides service for more complicated surgery and sicker patients.
These days, anaesthetic doctors see the importance of peri-operative medicine i.e. caring for patients before, during and after surgery. We aim to optimize children for surgery, help them go through surgery safely and to make sure they are comfortable after surgery. Effective pain relief and prevention of nausea and vomiting after surgery stand highly on our priority list. We have a 24-hour pain management service to care for children in need. We understand that hospital admission can be potentially traumatic for a child. Our aim is to help minimize the risk of this and sometimes we even manage to make it a pleasant one.
We value your questions and comments. We can be contacted via the following email address: paedsanaesthesia@southernhealth.org.au or by calling our department’s office on: (03) 9594 3283.
