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Children at the Edge aka Stories From a Children's Hospital (2004)
5 x 30 mins series for ABC and Beyond International
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Princess Margaret Hospital for Children in Perth, Western Australia is home to a multitude of dramatic, inspirational and sometimes tragic stories of children and health. Through the eyes of staff, patients and parents, we enter the inner sanctum of this distinguished hospital and observe the daily battles to provide paediatric care at the cutting edge. As the human drama unfolds, we elevate beyond the tabloid, to reveal the realities of the public health system: the issues, the ethics, the priorities and the dilemmas faced by staff and patients. And in a unique twist Stories From a Children's Hospital uncovers the inner workings of science in a world where life and death - and quality of survival - are at stake. This is a realm where science sometimes succeeds, sometimes fails...and real people depend on the outcome. From the bench-top to the bedside, Stories From a Children's Hospital is the human face of science; science in action in a public hospital, science struggling to save children teetering at the edge of life and death.
EPISODE 1
CHLOE'S STORY: PART ONE
Chloe Jankata is 13 years old and for the second time in her young life, she's fighting Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia. As a relapse patient, conventional chemotherapy has failed and she is enrolled in an experimental protocol from the Children's Oncology Group in the United States. It's a rigorous and debilitating regime of intense chemotherapy which literally takes her to the point of death. Meanwhile, scientists study leukaemia at the nearby Institute for Child Health Research have identified a way to genetically identify potential relapse patients when they first present with the disease. It's a major break-through and has exciting implications for future treatment. But for Chloe the heart rending struggle continues. Inevitably, those around her are forced to consider their motives and reflect on whether the months of suffering she has had to endure have been worth it.
We leave this episode with the decision being made to continue treatment. Her ordeal will continue.
EPISODE 2
CHLOE'S STORY: PART TWO
As a relapse patient with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia, 13 year old, Chloe Jankata's only hope for a long-term cure is a bone marrow or cord blood transplant. But the treatment risks everything. Her own bone marrow must be completely destroyed, leaving her defenceless, and at the point of no return. With her immune system destroyed she is perilously vulnerable to infection and totally dependent on the skill of the oncologists who prescribe and administer the cocktail of drugs which keep her alive. This final chapter in Chloe's story exposes us to the heart breaking reality of how much, and how little modern medicine can do with leukaemia.
And we learn that exacting a 'cure' can demand a shocking price.
EPISODE 3
"SKIN DEEP"
It takes only a few seconds for a child to receive a life-threatening burn, but it can take a lifetime to recover from the physical and emotional scarring. Principal burns surgeon, Dr Fiona Wood leads a team of scientists and clinicians who've made 'scarless healing' their Holy Grail. A significant step towards this goal is the revolutionary development of 'spray-on skin', in which the patient's own skin cells are harvested, grown in culture, and sprayed back on to the wound bed within a week of the initial injury. The speed of this process is having remarkable results. But for 11 year old Ben Smith, it's a different story. A petrol explosion two years ago burnt 60% of his skin surface and despite intensive treatment, his scarring is extensive and chaotic. And despite the best efforts of Dr Woods and her team, they have not been able to unravel the mystery of why it happens. The science of burns treatment has come a long way, but it's a journey only just begun.
EPISODE 4
THE COST OF LIVING
Dianne Popelier was born 17 weeks premature, and at the very edge of what medical science deems 'viable life'. Weighing less than half a kilo at birth, her tiny organs are grossly immature and completely inadequate for the 'alien' world outside her mother's womb. She is kept alive only with the help of a complex medical technology and 24 hour intensive care. And whilst it keeps her alive, it comes with huge costs - financial, emotional and psychological. For obstetric Professor John Newnham, pre-term birth is, "the single greatest problem facing human reproduction today." Consequently he has embarked on a study of pregnant women to determine why pre-term birth occurs, and ultimately what can be done to reduce it. Amazingly he thinks he may have found the answer by concentrating, not on the reproductive organs of his subjects, but by measuring the extent of the bacteria they carry.... in their mouths.
EPISODE 5
OUTREACH
Princess Margaret Hospital in Perth provides state-of-the-art paediatric care to more than 25,000 children every year. But for aboriginal children living in the state's remote areas like the Kimberley, the situation is dramatically different. They are thousands of miles away from the hospital and present with some of the worst health statistics in the world.. Several times a year, Princess Margaret paediatric cardiologist, Dr Luigi D'Orsogna travels to the Kimberley in the state's north to monitor aboriginal children with heart problems caused by rheumatic fever. But it's more a token gesture, a mere Band-Aid on a much larger social and political problem. The Kimberley's sole paediatrician, Dr Lindsay Adams can't understand why the problems still persists? It's 2003 and we have access to modern technology, so why is aboriginal health still so marginalized? Observing him at work in some of the state's most remote aboriginal communities, highlights the difficulties and reveals that this may be a situation for which medical science has no solution.
Awards:
"Chloe's Story' awarded Best Documentary Human Story, 2004 ATOM Awards.
"Chloe's Story' awarded Bronze Plaque, 2004 Columbus International Film Festival.
"Chloe's Story' awarded Outstanding Achievement Award, Outstanding Documentary Production, 2005 WA Screen Awards.
Nominated, Outstanding Achievement Award, Best Documentary Series, 2005 Australian Logies.