Each year over 600 of Australia’s sickest newborns receive lifesaving treatment from the Grace Centre for Newborn Intensive Care at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead.
Prof Nadia Badawi is the woman in charge of ensuring that over 96% of these babies survive and go home to their families.
Growing up in Egypt, Nadia always knew that she wanted to help children, but she never planned to go into medicine. She loved literature and thought she’d study it at university, but when it came to submitting her preferences, Nadia found herself ticking the box for medicine instead.
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“I grew up with a really feminist father and I think subconsciously he was pushing me towards helping women and children,” she told Mamamia.
“I believe if you help children and educate them, everything else falls into place.”
Badawi has been working at the Centre for 19 years, and in that time she’s helped thousands of babies overcome complex medical conditions, serious cardiac or surgical disorders, and go on to lead full lives.
One of the highlights of her career has been witnessing some of these babies returning to the Centre to complete their Year 10 work experience.
“It’s wonderful to see them grown up and about to enter their adult years.”
The newborns come to the Centre from all over Australia and the Pacific Islands, and often their families are scared, overwhelmed, and just holding out hope that their little baby is going to beat the odds.
Top Comments
Such a lovely read, I had a baby in neo natal intensive care and it really does take a special kind of person to work there. I will forever be grateful to the doctors and amazing nurses.
Professor Badawi and her team are the reason my son is part of the 96% of babies that leave Grace ward. Her care for her tiny patients and kindness towards their anxious, distressed and, at times, devastated parents is first class. My little boy needed complicated cardiac surgery and had a long stay first at Grace and then the Edgar Stevens Ward at Westmead. The doctors and nurses attending to these little people are true heroes and as a society they should be held up as role models for our sons and daughters. We now have a healthy, happy and fearless little four year old boy. He is a beloved big and little brother and we are so lucky that he was born here and had people like Nadia looking him. Thank you so much.