Many families have welcomed a Queensland hospital introducing new live-streaming cameras in every ICU baby cot.
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00:00 Baby Arlo has had a rough start to life. He was just four days old when he underwent surgery
00:07 for a rare congenital defect.
00:12 It was a hole in the diaphragm itself and all the organs down in the stomach and that
00:18 had actually come up into the chest cavity.
00:20 There you go, a little jiggler.
00:22 The family has spent the past month at the Townsville University Hospital, 600 kilometres
00:28 from their home in central Queensland. But new cameras mean Arlo's loved ones can watch
00:33 his cot around the clock.
00:35 Photos are one thing but just to be able to live stream whenever you want and see him
00:40 in the flesh kind of thing is something different.
00:43 It's been a special source of connection for dad Adam Wilson while he works away in the
00:48 mines.
00:49 I have to admit I've rang the NICU a few times and asked them to move the camera so I could
00:53 see him better overnight.
00:55 The cameras were recently installed in all 50 cots in the hospital's neonatal unit.
01:01 We are the first public hospital to have this technology as part of our model of care in
01:07 Queensland.
01:08 It's been overwhelmingly successful at reducing parental stress and anxiety.
01:13 One mum said that they log in and they read a bedtime story with their other children
01:19 while watching baby on the cameras.
01:22 This neonatal unit treats between 800 and 900 babies each year. About 40% are from outside
01:29 Townsville, from central Queensland to the Gulf and west to the Northern Territory border.
01:34 These new cameras are helping bridge that distance.
01:38 The team hopes to see the initiative expanded.
01:41 We've got families that are here for months at a time so the ability to remain connected
01:47 with family and siblings back at home who have to remain at work and school, it's life
01:54 changing for them.
01:55 [no audio]