UC Irvine Health System
10/10/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 10/11/2024 17:07
UCI Health NICU Reunion Carnival drew more than 2,000 people
UCI Health NICU Reunion Carnival drew more than 2,000 people
'Very rewarding': Team members, families reunite for first time since 2018
October 10, 2024
Eight-year-old Sarah Parra is all smiles as her mom, Dora Leon, holds a cellphone picture of her daughter when she was born at 24 weeks and weighed one pound. Sarah spent six months in the neonatal intensive care unit at UCI Medical Center in Orange. Credit: Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG
IN THE NEWS: A reunion of UCI Health neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) graduates and their families drew a record 2,000 people. It was the first event since 2018.
The reunion is an opportunity for those families to reconnect with the individuals who cared for them.
Reunion organizers Summer Coleman, an interim nurse manager at UCI Health, and Cindy Gameros, an assistant nurse manager, spoke to the Orange County Register about what the event means to them.
"It's great to see them go from being so critically ill to thriving adolescents and kids," Coleman says.
"I think it keeps us going through the hard times," Gameros says of seeing the progress of her patients.
The NICU at UCI Medical Center in Orange is one of two level III NICUs in Orange County. The designation by the state of California means that it is equipped to care for the most critically ill newborns experiencing the most challenging health complications.
The 45-bed NICU is equipped with advanced diagnostic tools and technologies to treat a wide range of conditions, including brain injury, respiratory failure and gastroesophageal reflux disease. It specializes in caring for the smallest of the premature infants and infants born of multiple gestations.