KidCare

Child Sized Emergency Care Delivers Big Results

When Nikki Bello, 29, of Forked River, received a call from her son’s day care center that he didn’t feel well, she headed right over to pick him up. Normally an active and rambunctious 4-year-old, Riley was lethargic, had a low-grade fever and just wasn’t acting like himself.

Nikki gave her son fluids and some over-the-counter medicine to help reduce his fever and he dozed on the couch throughout the afternoon. Just before 6 a.m. his condition took a turn for the worse. “Riley’s fever spiked. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he started to shake and foam at the mouth,” recounts his mom. “It was very scary.” Riley would be unresponsive for ten agonizing minutes.

Riley’s dad, Robert, who had gotten home just as the seizure began, quickly called 911. The ambulance arrived and quickly transported Riley to Community Medical Center – to KidCare, the hospital’s dedicated Pediatric Emergency Department. KidCare, located adjacent to the main ED, treats some 12,000 children each year – from newborns to teens. The unit is staffed with a team of board certified pediatric physicians and pediatric nurses specially trained to care for ill or injured children –like Riley.

“Children have distinctly different medical needs when it comes to emergency care, which is why a designated pediatric emergency department with board certified pediatricians in house 24/7 can be critical,” explains John Kraynock, MD, the pediatrician who treated Riley.

In addition to an expert staff of pediatric specialists, KidCare maintains child-sized diagnostic and therapeutic equipment and eight state-of-the-art pediatric treatment rooms – with child-friendly amenities such as TVs, toys, coloring books and even a fire truck exam table – to distract uneasy patients, alleviate their fears and reassure anxious parents.

Riley was fortunate. Diagnosed with febrile seizures as a result of his high fever, he was treated and released within just a few hours. “It was a very scary experience,” says his mom, “but the doctors and nursing staff at Community Medical Center were excellent with Riley, attentive and great at helping calm our fears as well.”