Nate Harbinson’s life saved by Royal Children’s Hospital

“When I was 20 weeks pregnant, it was the flood, so I couldn’t get my scan done and then the doctor said, ‘you can’t birth here (Echuca) unless you have another one’, so at 31 weeks, we had another scan,” Mrs Harbinson said.

“And we found out the baby had TGA, which is transposition of the greater arteries.

“From 36 weeks, we lived in Melbourne, then I was induced at 39 weeks, he (Nate) was born via emergency C-section, and his heart rate dropped.

“Once he was born, he didn’t breathe for three-and-a-half minutes and was flat tubed straight away with a breathing tube.

“He had a hole in his heart, with TGA, meaning the arteries are around the wrong way compared to someone else.”

At four weeks old, Nate underwent open heart surgery.

“After the surgery, they called us up and they were like, ‘It went well, but when we opened him up, the left side of his heart wasn’t functioning, it wasn’t in great condition’,” Mrs Harbinson said.

“They said, you can come up to the hospital and see him in 90 minutes and we waited about three or four hours, and someone called us and said he went into cardiac arrest.

“So, his chest was left open because his heart wasn’t in a great way.

“They did CPR directly onto the heart for 10 minutes, and then they put him on life support.

“Normally, they’ll take them off life support, then a few days later they will shut the chest, but they were like, ‘we’ll try and do it all now, and we will just see what happens,’ and he just kicked goals from then.

“He did really well for about two weeks, then he got a wound infection, which was seven days on IV antibiotics, but he kept blowing out his IV.

“He had to be pricked a lot, where they flush it out through their skin.

“And then they discharged us.”

In total, Nate and his family were in Melbourne for 10 weeks, and Nate was in hospital for seven weeks, with four days on life support.

Mrs Harbinson would like to bring awareness to how fantastic the Royal Children’s was, thanking the Koala Ward - the cardiac ward, and the Rosella Ward - the ICU ward for babies, for the care they had for Nate.

“Someone might say, ‘he could have this?’ and the scans will be done in the next hour and the results back in two hours,” she said.

“Everything happens so quickly and is so unbelievably thorough.

“I think, if they didn’t have the money, they wouldn’t have the equipment they do.

“He was on a life support machine that was donated, and I was like, if they hadn’t donated that, we wouldn’t have him on this.

“Every little thing counts.”

During his stay at the RCH, Nate was studied so that the hospital could improve patient outcomes for other children.

Mrs Harbinson would like to encourage people to donate so the RCH can continue to employ the people to do studies like they did on Nate, so they can figure out the best way to do things and help future babies.

Nate is now doing well, having just celebrated his first birthday.

“He is in the third percentile for his weight, and he has got an underactive thyroid and is on meds for that,” Mrs Harbinson said.

“We went to the cardiologist two weeks ago, and they don’t want to see him for a year, which is fantastic because we were at three-month catch-ups.

“He will have to have an ECG and echo for the rest of his life, every year, just to see that it is all good.

You can donate to the Good Friday Appeal, The Royal Children’s Hospital at www.goodfridayappeal.com.au