Paediatric Cardiology Unit
About one child in every hundred is born with a cardiac defect.
From the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, important work was carried out by Dr Ian I. Findlay at the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital on cardio-respiratory function in infant cardiology.In 1970, with increasing numbers of children attending the Agnes Nathan Children’s Unit at that hospital, the service commitment of all members of the department increased. 1978 saw the appointment of Dr R.A. Blackwood at Queen Victoria Hospital.
In 1985 the state government approved grants enabling the Queen Victoria and Royal Children’s Hospital’s joint Paediatric Cardiology Service to expand. Important developments in the last twenty years in this field, in which Dr Sam Menahem has played a vital role, have included the introduction of echocardiography as a non-invasive diagnostic tool, the use of pacemakers for infants and the development of balloon dilation of valves and vessels.
On 19 June 2009, prematurely born baby girl Taylor Gardner, became the world’s smallest baby to be fitted with an external heart pacemaker by Monash Medical Centre Clayton’s Dr Alex Veldman. While the same procedure had already been performed elsewhere, Taylor is the smallest baby ever to receive a pacemaker that is slightly larger than her body size. She will receive an internal pacemaker at a later stage.
Dr Sarah Hope, who leads Monash Children’s Paediatric Cardiology Unit and who oversaw the procedure used to treat Taylor, has also recently supervised research by this unit into occlusive aortic arch thrombus in a preterm neonate. Collaborators in this research that include Monash Newborn’s Dr Johny Vakayil Francis and Dr Arvind Sehgal have established that arterial thrombosis accounts for approximately half of all thrombotic events in neonates. While most are in the abdominal aorta, an aortic arch clot is extremely rare and has the potential for significant mortality and morbidity.