Mom By My Side is part of the Foundation’s Open ICU program. The project examines the situation, provides recommendations and promotes the best practices so parents can stay with their children in intensive care units in accordance with international standards and principles.
Support
Providing accommodation for parents to stay with their children in ICU
Beneficiaries
Doctors, ICU nurses, healthcare workers, hospital administrators
Project working language: Russian
Time frame: since 2014 till now
Status: active
Updated: 09.01.2020
Contact details
info@rcpcf.ru
+7 (499) 704-37-35
Project web-site
https://www.rcpcf.ru
Social media
Video
Social challenge and reasons for project’s initiation
Immediacy of the social problem
External reasons for project’s initiation
Internal reasons for project’s initiation
Target audience and stakeholders of the project
Target audience (charity recipients) of the project
Doctors, ICU nurses, healthcare workers, hospital administrators. It is hard to provide exact figures because Russian hospitals are understaffed, with only 53% of doctor positions filled and 70-80% of nurse positions filled. Officially, there should be one doctor per every six beds in the ICU and one nurse per every three beds. Given that Russia has a total of 8,350 beds in ICUs, the target audience (adjusted for the deficit of manpower is 740 doctors and 2,100 nurses. If we add hospital administrators, this leaves us with 3,200-3,500 people.
Stakeholders of the project
Partners: KPMG, Process Consulting, National League of Health, Presidential Grant Fund, Ministry of Healthcare, Children’s Anesthesiologist/Intensivist Association, Agency for Strategic Initiatives, Vera Foundation, Konstantin Khabensky Foundation.
Other stakeholders:
- ICU patients and their families;
- parent associations;
- medical schools;
- medical school students and graduates;
- provincial healthcare ministries, healthcare administrative bodies;
- volunteers;
- the Foundation’s donors;
- media (including RIA Novosti, Meduza and Takie Dela)
“My third child, Mikhail, lived only a year. His life was short yet he taught me a lot of things. In one year, I changed a lot, both emotionally and physically. I want to share with you how you should go through this difficult time when your child goes to the ICU. How to talk to doctors and nurses, whom to ask for help, how to behave yourself, what kind of questions to ask, how to be helpful for your child, how to avoid harsh emotional consequences. I want you to know about your rights, yet you should also respect the rights of other people. You should know how to communicate with doctors so you can be as helpful as possible for your child and for yourself, without getting involved in a protracted conflict”.
Mission and goals
The mission is to help parents exercise their right to stay with their children in the ICU by creating a family-friendly environment in hospitals.
Goals:
- Present the best international and Russian practices on parents staying with their children in the ICU
- Design guidelines for parents on staying with their children in the ICU
- Design and try out algorithms and regulations for children’s hospitals on how parents should stay with their children in the ICU
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6 Nadezhda Paschenko, Yulia Logunova and Olga Germanenko. “Together with Mum: What Do You Do If Your Child Goes to the ICU? Recommendations for Parents,” Children’s Palliative Care Foundation, 2015
https://www.rcpcf.ru/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Brochure_Together_with_Mum_2015_for_site.pdf
Later on, the following goals were added to the project:
- Prepare and organize educational seminar for ICU personnel
- Prepare and organize training sessions on how ICU personnel should interact with patients
- Design and circulate methodology on parents staying with their children in the ICU
- Conduct a joint evaluation of children’s ICUs
Project description
Team and partners
Team
Partners
Resources
Financial resources
Human resources
Technological and material resources
Achieved results
Immediate results:
Strategic partnership: On May 26, 2017, the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI), the Children’s Palliative Care Foundation, the Konstantin Khabensky Foundation, and the Vera Foundation signed a cooperation agreement. The organizations will work together to design regulations and guidelines, conduct research, organize consultations and master classes for healthcare professionals and parents in various provinces of Russia, explaining to people that they have the right to stay with their sick relatives.
Over 2,500 specialists in 26 provinces of Russia have taken part in events promoting the practice of parents staying with their children in the ICU: workshops, training sessions, webinars, etc. This enabled the specialists to learn more about the issues related to parents staying with their children and proper interaction with patients and their families.
“The workshop is an excellent opportunity to learn more about the Open ICU project. Of course, you can find this information in the guidelines circulated by the Foundation. But there’s nothing better than face-to-face communication. They did not just organize the workshop; they visited our hospital and offered their recommendations on developing a family-friendly approach, pointing out certain details we weren’t aware of. We are open to families, we get them involved in certain procedures, but the Open ICU approach is not limited to that. After the workshop, we are going to discuss how we are going to develop this approach further”.
“I think that today we have everything we need to join the club of developed countries where families and friends have access to the ICU. We have the necessary decrees and orders. All that’s left for us to do is to go to specific hospitals and talk to the people there. We have to explain what kind of responsibility the relatives have, how they can help the hospital personnel, how this is going to be good for everybody. What we need today is to explain all this to people everywhere. We need to explain that this will also provide psychological help, both to patients and to hospitals”.
“Officially, there are no legislative barriers. It’s up to the hospital administrator to decide who should have to access to the ICU and even to regular wards. It is extremely important for hospitals to be as open and family-friendly as possible. This will create an atmosphere of trust and will improve the healing process for patients who are in a difficult situation”.
Publications with guidelines circulated as part of the project: 9 titles, a total of 23,000 copies.
1) “Together or separately? Should children in need of palliative care have their parents with them in the ICU?” 1,000 copies.
2) “Together with Mum. What Do You Do If Your Child Goes to the ICU?” 2,000 copies..
3) “It’s OK to Stay Together. How Parents Can Stay with Their Children in the Intensive Care Unit,” 5,000 copies.
4) “Parents Staying With Their Children. Recommendations for Hospitals,” 4,000 copies.
5) “Parents Staying With Their Children in the ICU: Guidelines,” 4,000 copies.
6) “Important Questions on the Open ICU: Guidelines,” 2,000 copies.
7) “Dos and Don’ts: 20 Questions for Nurses,” 2,000 copies.
8) “It’s Better When You’re Together: Recommendations for ICU personnel on arranging for parents to stay with their children,” 2,000 copies.
9) “It’s Not Scary to Be Together: What Do You Do If Your Baby Goes to the ICU?” 1,000 copies.
Social results:
Feedback forms collected after events indicate that 90% of the participants support the idea of families staying together with patients in the ICU, considering such a practice necessary for the patient. They agree that the family’s presence has a positive therapeutic effect for the patient. This means that ICU personnel are ready to change the traditional approach.
We can confidently say that most of the barriers that stand in the way of parents exercising their legitimate right to be with their sick children have been removed.
Social performance
The work done under the program will have a long-term effect on the target audience. The methods used proved to be efficient, as evidenced by requests for guideline from hospitals. The availability of guidelines and recommendations and opportunities to acquire necessary communicative skills help healthcare professionals adopt the practice of parents staying with their children in the ICU, switch to the family-friendly approach, become more open and improve the quality of services provided.