The Health Services Authority’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) has received a new brain monitor from Rotary Central Cayman Islands, giving the team another tool to care for vulnerable newborns.

The donation in July was made as part of Rotary Central’s observance of Rotary International’s Maternal and Child Health Month, and was intended to improve monitoring of babies in the NICU. The donation came after the HSA used therapeutic hypothermia on a newborn in 2024, a treatment that showed the need for specialist monitoring in local neonatal care.

The HSA said the new monitor improves its ability to care for the most fragile babies in the Cayman Islands. As Cayman’s main public healthcare provider, the authority operates across Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, and equipment that improves neonatal care has a direct impact for families who rely on its services.

Consultant Neonatologist and Head of the Paediatric Department Robert Bomont said the equipment improved the care the HSA could provide to newborns needing close observation.

“We were not able to offer this level of monitoring at the HSA prior to the donation,” he said. “It helps us to make decisions regarding cooling with the same level of information available to much larger neonatal units.”

Cooling therapy, also known as therapeutic hypothermia, involves lowering a newborn’s body temperature and is used in cases of newborn brain injury linked to oxygen deprivation. It is mainly used for babies diagnosed with Hypoxic-Ischaemic Encephalopathy, a type of brain injury caused by a lack of oxygen and blood flow to the brain during or shortly after birth. The new monitor helps the team track whether seizures are continuing, and whether an intervention has reduced the burden on the baby.

Dr Bomont said the monitor was the first time the HSA had been able to follow babies who were having seizures in this way.

"It is the first time that we have had the opportunity to monitor babies who are having seizures and fits, and to ensure that our intervention has either stopped or reduced that fit burden,” he said. “It offers a segue to improvement, or the final piece of the puzzle in us giving treatment to babies who may or may not require cooling," he said.

Donation followed Rotary’s Maternal and Child Health Month

Hypoxic-Ischaemic Encephalopathy affects more than 1.2 million newborns each year.

The donation fulfilled a commitment Rotary Central made during its July 2025 Maternal and Child Health Month observance, when Dr Bomont addressed the club and highlighted the needs of babies admitted to the NICU. The club said the monitor was chosen in response to those needs.

Rotary Central’s Community Service Director Celia Middleton said the club was pleased to hand over the monitor to the HSA.

“We are pleased to officially hand over the Natus CFM Brainz Monitor to the HSA. The machine has been commissioned, and staff have been trained. This new monitor will allow the staff to care for these vulnerable NICU babies,” Ms Middleton said.

She added that Rotary Central had continued to meet identified needs in the community. In the 2024-2025 Rotary year, the club and its donors helped provide a mobile blood bank unit to the Cayman Islands Blood Bank. This year, Rotary Central’s annual raffle, Music Extravaganza and bus shelter programme funded the NICU monitor.