STAY-HOME PROJECT A BIG WINNER
DANIELLE and Marc Kinvig’s twin daughters Emme and Mae are tube fed more than 10 times a day, making it almost impossible to go outside the house for long.
The twins were born premature and now, at 11 months, getting them to the many medical appointments and to the face-toface tube feeding clinic can be a five-hour trip out.
“The prospect of feeding them in public … they’re prone to vomiting, they get anxious and sometimes, after they’re fed somewhere else, they won’t eat at home,” Ms Kinvig said. She said weaning them off tube feeding was a lengthy process.
A new proposal for net coaching, via video conferencing, and an expanded support network for affected families has won a $100,000 grant from the Improvers Awards, the annual staff innovation awards run by Gold Coast Health for staff projects that will directly improve patient care.
The net coaching program is the brainchild of Gold Coast University Hospital’s paediatric dietitian Jacqui Willcox and speech pathologist Rachael Oorloff.
It promises to make life easier for the Kinvigs.
“Doing the treatment at home in a more relaxed environment, it’s where they practise feeding and eating every day — it’s more relevant. This way we’d have a lot more long-term success,” Ms Kinvig said.