London Press Service Informs
WORLD-FAMOUS EYE HOSPITAL INCREASES
CHILDREN’S CARE
A globally renowned ophthalmic hospital recently opened a children’s eye centre, creating an environment and research infrastructure that – when added to its clinical services – provides a world centre of excellence for young people with visual problems.
Moorfields hospital in London is a National Health Service (NHS) foundation trust, and is a unique national and international resource for the treatment, research and teaching of ophthalmology. Founded in 1805, specialists say the range of services and volume of patients cannot be matched by any other institution in the world.
Last year (2006) Moorfields received more than 260,000 referrals from across the United Kingdom and much further afield. The biggest United States counterpart, the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami, has about 200,000 referrals each year.
Almost 10 per cent of the services provided at Moorfields are for patients who are 16 years old or younger, consisting of about 24,000 outpatient attendances and 1,300 paediatric NHS admissions a year, making it the largest paediatric ophthalmic unit in the globe.
The Moorfields trust’s mission in creating the Richard Desmond Children’s Eye Centre (RDCEC) was for a unique development “to provide a world-class building to house a world-class service”, said a spokesman.
The RDCEC welcomed its first patients in 2007 and was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth on 23 February 2007. The building is named in honour of Richard Desmond, chairman of Northern & Shell media group (publishers of the Daily Express, Sunday Express among others), who donated 2.5 million pounds.
Before patients enter the eye centre, they may notice some remarkable characteristics. Arriving at the main entrance, they are greeted with an array of aluminium louvres. This not only enables the building to be protected from the sun, but from a distance the facade appears as birds in flight and adds to the centre’s distinctive and child-friendly character.
Good outlook: consultant ophthalmic surgeon Professor Peng Khaw with a young patient, Matteo, from Italy following his operation at Moorfields Eye Hospital for glaucoma.
Under the louvres are hundreds of lights that can be programmed to perform an impressive display. There is also a large rectangular platform offering amazing views over London.
The Richard Desmond Children’s Eye Centre is an eight-storey building containing five clinical areas, a hostel, an administration block and plant. The centre has been purposely designed in conjunction with patients, families and staff. The ethos of the RDCEC is that it does not appear to be a hospital and offers a calm, relaxing and non-threatening environment. Floors are awash with bright colours, lights and wall paintings.
Naming opportunities for floors and key rooms were offered to donors. The floors are kitted out with the very latest pieces of ophthalmic equipment such as Humphrey field analysers. These are used by the top glaucoma specialists and in all of the landmark studies of the disease. With this instrument they can detect the loss of or alteration to the nerves in the eye and the function of retinal tissue.
The centre also has a Goldman perimeter, which is used for visual fields testing, and a Heidelberg retinal tomographer that uses a laser to produce a three-dimensional (3D) image of the optic nerve.
The clinics feature all sub-specialities of the eye. Other clinical features include a low-vision resource centre; ocular prosthetics for children who need artificial eyes or cosmetic shells; ultrasound and electrophysiology diagnostic testing; and a specialist area for contact lens fitting.
Ian Balmer, the centre’s chief executive, said: “It is the best functional children’s eye hospital in the world and it makes a statement in the community because of the striking way it looks. It looks nothing like a hospital, and we intended it not to so that children would not feel threatened.”
Consultant ophthalmic surgeon Professor Peng Khaw added: “The main drive has been the children and their families, providing better facilities for everyone. We hope the building will act as a catalyst to focus on developing new and better treatments.
“A centre like this focuses the mind. We used to think that somebody else would develop various treatments but now we realise they won’t. It is only because, with colleagues like Professor Tony Moore [head of the children’s centre], we see these children and their problems every day that we are motivated to do the research.
By Brian Bell |