The Balearic Islands pediatric transfer unit last year managed a total of 30 tranfers of children in critical condition from the Pitiusas. Almost all transfers, a total of 25, were made to hospitals in Mallorca, but another five were destined for centers in Barcelona, details Kai Boris Brandstrup, coordinator of this unit, formed by pediatricians and nursing staff of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Son Espases and 061. All these trips between hospitals are made in the medical transfer aircraft or, in some cases, with the helicopter based in Can Misses.
The number of transfers of children and adolescents in a critical condition was reduced last year, according to data from the unit, since in 2020 a total of 42 were made, two of them to Barcelona and the remaining 40 to Mallorca. In other words, the number of pediatric transfers fell by 28.6% last year. Brandstrup details that this includes both the referrals that are carried out from the public health system, that is, the Can Misses and Formentera hospitals, as well as those from the Policlínica Nuestra Señora del Rosario.
The vast majority of these transfers have been managed by the Pediatrics service of the Can Misses Hospital, where there was also a reduction, although less than the total: 13.8%. In 2020 thers were 29 referrals, while last year the service coordinated by Bartolomé Bonet referred 25 child patients. Although the total number of children referred to pediatric ICU from the Pitiusas Islands decreased, the percentage of transfers managed by the Pediatrics service increased. In 2020 they accounted for just over two out of three (69.04%) but in 2021 they represented 83.3%.
The head of Pediatrics at Can Misses points out that, fortunately, these transfers are not many at the end of the year and that, moreover, not all are considered serious. “It goes in waves. We can go weeks without any and last week we had three, two of them on the same day,” he says. “Very few transfers are made to Barcelona,” says Bonet, who explains that children and adolescents who need heart surgery are transferred “directly” to this city.
Premature newborns
The majority of the transfers are newborns, many of them premature at less than 32 weeks. Recently, Bonet explains, it was necessary to transfer a baby born at 29 weeks whose mother arrived at the hospital already in labor. In cases like this, it is ideal to transfer the mother before she has the baby, but this option was already impossible, so the pediatric professionals attended the child until the team arrived to transfer him to the Son Espases Neonatology ICU.
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