The Children’s Hospital at Westmead is the largest and most highly respected paediatric centre in NSW, providing excellent care for children from NSW, Australia and across the Pacific Rim and is world renowned for providing the best care for sick children and their families.

This specialist care, combined with community education, advocacy for improved child’s health and ground-breaking research into childhood illnesses, is blended within a positive,  caring and healing environment. Children with problems such as severe burns, major heart conditions, and liver and kidney diseases are referred to the Children’s Hospital at Westmead because it houses leading specialty units within the hospital grounds.

Westmead Children’s hospital is home to:

  • NSW Centre for the Advancement of Adolescent Health
  • The Department of Adolescent Medicine
  • NSW Paediatric Burns Unit
  • Paediatric Liver Transplant Unit
  • National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (the only Paediatric Tumour Bank in the southern hemisphere)
  • NSW Newborn Screening Service
  • The Kerry Packer Institute for Child Health Research and,
  • National Poisons Information Centre.

The NSW Centre for the Advancement of Adolescent Health (CAAH)
The centre was launched in December 1998 as a key recommendation of the NSW youth health policy, “Young People’s Health: Our Future” (1998).

CAAH’s mission is to protect and promote the health and well-being of young people aged 12 -25 years by partnering with health care, non-government, education, academic, community and advocacy bodies to ensure better adolescent health outcomes.

The key focus areas of the Centre’s work are:
• Developing information and resources to increase knowledge and understanding of youth health issues
• Capacity building to increase organisational skills and confidence in addressing young people’s health needs
• Supporting applied research and promoting better practice in youth health care, and
• Supporting advocacy and policy development to increase leadership and action for adolescent health

The Department of Adolescent Medicine
The Department offers medical and psychosocial assessment to young people with medical problems referred by their local physician or paediatrician. Assessment involves consultation with an adolescent physician and expert psychosocial staff with further input as needed by the Department’s Consultant Psychiatrist, Occupational Therapist, Artist-in-Residence, Clinical Nurse Consultant and Family Therapy team.

Children present with problems that range from growth and developmental concerns to complications of complex chronic illness and nutritional and weight concerns.

The Department functions as an outpatient service with young people and families attending clinics every day, complemented by a mixed 15 to 20 bed adolescent inpatient ward. The ward provides a therapeutic environment with skilled adolescent nurses and clinicians providing acute care as well as enhancing self management skills, adherence to treatment plans and facilitating transition to adult care.

A comprehensive group work program incorporating the unique Youth Arts Program with two Artisis-in-Residence supports both hospitalised teenagers and outpatients with additional groups focusing on weight management and peer support for adolescents living with complex chronic illness.

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.

Source: In: Challenges in Adolescent Health ISBN 978-1-60741-616-6
Editors: David Bennett, Susan Towns et al. © 2009 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.