Information for Hospitals
Heartfelt services are for stillbirths (from approx 22 weeks), critically premature (under approx 28 weeks) and ill infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Units of their local hospitals, as well as babies and children up to approx 16 years old with serious and terminal illnesses.
The Heartfelt criteria is only a guide and we have a lot of compassionate space around this criteria. If you are unsure, please feel free to contact the area rep listed for Australia and New Zealand.
When considering making a session request, please discuss with the family about the possibility and then make contact with the area rep who coordinates the sessions. All of our area reps are volunteers. If the session is not urgent, please consider making contact with the area rep during a relatively normal period of time. If however, the need for the session is urgent, we are more than happy to be called at any time of the day or night.
Please don't promise someone will come at a certain time, heartfelt is a volunteer organisation with very committed members who balance their own work, family and commitments with their work with Heartfelt.
The process is,
1. A request comes into the rep who gets as much detail as possible about the session (see template below)
2. The request gets sent to members through our different communication networks
3. Once a members respond and a member is available, they are put in touch with the family
4. When possible, the person making the request is kept updated
We refer to session "requests" because it is exactly what it is, a request for our service.
We would also like to emphasise that all our members are volunteers and do not get paid for offering this service.
Because of the nature of the work and being a volunteer organisation, there are unfortunately times that sessions are not able to be covered. This would happen once every 2-3 months and in these cases we have our retouching service that can work with photos taken by the family or hospital.
Below is the information template that is ideal to have for our members and partners to fulfil on session requests, the most critical information is in bold. Many hospitals use this template when making session requests and we understand that each hospital may have different privacy policies that need to be followed.
Patient: xxxxxxxxx
Age: xxxxxxxxx
Gender: xxxxxxxxx
Diagnosis: xxxxxxxxx
Session Location: xxxxxxxxx
Session Address: xxxxxxxxx
Referrer's Name: xxxxxxxxx
Referrer's Phone: xxxxxxxxx
Referrer's Email: xxxxxxxxx
Parent's Names: xxxxxxxxx
Parent's Address: xxxxxxxxx
Parent's Phone: xxxxxxxxx
Parent's Email: xxxxxxxxx
Special consideration: xxxxxxxxx
Urgency: xxxxxxxxx
Even though our members have seen a wide range of conditions, the members aren't medically trained and we appreciate any information that can help members prepare for sessions as well as request support from staff if needed during the session.
We have policies and requirements to look after our members and an important two for the hospital to know is:
1. Members are not to be left alone with a baby
2. Members are not to touch, handle or move a child (while making sure common sense prevails)
Please bear this in mind during sessions.
If you would like to request our DL flyers, please email brochures@heartfelt.org.au.
Click to download an A4 flyer for Australia or New Zealand.
Click to download our DL flyer (3 up on an A4 sheet) for Australia or New Zealand.
Another way Heartfelt supports hospitals is through our camera kit project. Below is an instructional video for staff on how to take better photos.
We also have a helpful downloadable flyer on how to take better photos. This can be dowloaded here.
