Where you can work in Starship
As a major teaching hospital and paediatric tertiary provider of care Starship offers a wide range of nursing specialities within the hospital and in the community.
Children's Emergency Department (CED)
The Children’s Emergency Department (CED) sees 34,000 infants, children and young people who present with undifferentiated illness and injury every year and is the regional trauma centre for children. CED is often the first connection with Starship that children and whānau have. Some of these children will go on to having a long journey through cancer or a lifetime of diabetes.
We discharge 80% of our patients so we do a lot of education with families. We perform procedural sedation many children with fractured limbs or lacerations enabling discharge instead of admission.
Our multi-disciplinary team works really well together and are very supportive. Nursing clinical skills include paediatric emergency nursing knowledge and skills and a range of advanced skills such as triage and resuscitation.
Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU)
The PICU is the only dedicated paediatric intensive care facility within New Zealand. PICU provides a national service for those children requiring intensive care for more than 24 hours. PICU is a 22 bed unit that admits approximately 1200 children each year. The full range of intensive care support techniques are employed covering all specialities and including HFOV, CVVH, ECMO and flight retrieval, making this ICU a unique and highly specialised environment. PICU also runs an active team of research nurses.
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)
NICU cares for babies born to parents from Central, West and North Auckland, and provides care for babies from other New Zealand regions when required. It is the referral centre for babies who need input from paediatric cardiology services, neonatal surgery or treatment for complex metabolic diseases. The unit is located on level nine of Auckland City Hospital - directly across from National Women’s Labour and Delivery Suite. There are 40 cots divided into three areas of care:
Level 3 (Intensive Care) - Babies born at less than 32 weeks gestation or who need mechanical ventilation or require intensive care support
Level 2 (High Dependency) - Babies who need CPAP therapy, intravenous fluids and antibiotics
Parent Infant Nursery - Low-dependency Level 2 babies, focusing on establishing feeds and preparing the baby and family for discharge
Paediatric Congenital and Cardiac Service (PCCS)
Our Paediatric Congenital and Cardiac Service (PCCS) is the sole provider of congenital cardiac care from fetal diagnosis, through infancy, childhood and into adulthood. We also care for infants and children with acquired heart disease within New Zealand and the Pacific Basin. Ward 23B has 22 beds and 4 intensive observation area beds.
As a service we also provide interventional and diagnostic procedures in our dedicated cardiac investigations room, electrophysiology interventional care, CT, MRI as well as cardiac surgery and cardiology care.
Being a RN within the PCCS team brings opportunities to develop specialist paediatric cardiac knowledge and nursing skills. Our senior nursing team - including Nurse Specialists, Nurse Practitioners, Clinical Charge Nurses, Nurse Educator and Nurse Consultant - work collaboratively with RNs to wrap around families as they go on their journey though the service.
Surgical Services
Ward 24A
A 25 bedded paediatric ward specialising in treating children with disorders of bones, joints and muscles.
Children usually stay 1-3 days. However, some long-stay patients (such as patients with osteomyelitis) can stay for six weeks.
Common admissions include fractured bones, bone or joint infections, disorders of the formation of joints, disorders of the growth of bones, clubfoot and scoliosis.
Nursing clinical skills specific to this area include traction, VPAP, pain modalities, wound care management PICO and VAC dressings.
Ward 24B
A 24 bedded paediatric ward caring for patients under the general surgery, ENT, plastics and trauma services.
Children usually stay for 1-3 days. However, some patients stay for a more extended time. Surgical patients can range from simple through to complex.
Surgeries include abdominal, thoracic, neonatal, genitourinary, oncologic, ENT and trauma.
Nursing clinical skills specific to this area include tracheostomy management, chest drain management, complex fluid balance IVF, IVN, oral/enteral feeds titration.
General Paediatrics - Ward 25
Ward 25 is the General Paediatrics ward, a fast paced and diverse medical ward which also includes the regional inpatient eating disorder service.
Neuro Services - Ward 26A
The paediatric neuro services at Starship encompass Neurosurgery, Neurology, Endocrine, Metabolics and Developmental Paediatrics. Ward 26A includes a four bed intensive observation area.
Nursing clinical skills you will gain on ward 26A are paediatric neurosurgical, neurology, endocrine, metabolic and developmental area.
Medical Specialties - Ward 26B
The Medical Specialities ward (26B) provides tertiary and quaternary care to children including treatment for long term and specialist medical conditions. Our ward specialises in caring for children from the neonatal period right up to age sixteen with complex and often long term needs relating to Renal, Gastro and Respiratory.
You’ll gain clinical experience while caring for children under our National Intestinal Failure Service, our Paediatric Haemodialysis Service as well as care for children undergoing kidney and liver transplants. We also provide tertiary and quaternary care for children requiring sleep medicine and long term ventilator support. Our dedicated multidisciplinary team show enormous compassion and care for our children, who come from across New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.
Blood and Cancer - Ward 27AB
The Starship Blood and Cancer Centre is the largest tertiary centre in New Zealand caring for children and young people with cancer and blood disorders. We are a Children’s Oncology Group (COG) affiliated and Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy (FACT) Centre which enables us to provide both gold standard and cutting edge treatment that is internationally benchmarked and recognised.
The Starship Blood and Cancer Centre comprises 19 inpatient beds and a busy outpatient and day stay clinic. The service provides assessment, diagnosis, treatment, supportive care and long-term follow up of children and young people with cancer and non-malignant haematological conditions. The service also provides the Haematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant service for New Zealand. The holistic nature of this service begins with initial diagnosis and management, supportive care throughout treatment and continues to encompass all aspects of survivorship.
Nursing clinical skills specific to Starship Blood and Cancer cover a variety of treatments including chemotherapy, monoclonal antibody therapy and bone marrow transplant and care for high acuity children and young people.
Perioperative Services
Paediatric Perioperative services consist of a patient and Whanau pre-operative area, Seven Operating Rooms, and an eight bay post-anaesthetic care unit (PACU) .
Each of our Operating Rooms has innovative technology to continue our commitment to providing the best quality perioperative nursing care.
The Emergency and Elective surgery provided within our unit encompasses: Cardiac, Orthopaedics, Plastics, ORL, head and Neck, Dental, General, Colorectal, Hepatobiliary, Neonatal, complex congenital reconstructions, Urology, Thoracic, Oncology, Spines, Vascular and Endoscopy.
Starship Community
Starship Community is a multidisciplinary team providing nursing, allied health, technical and cultural support to children, young people and their families living within the Auckland DHB area. Our services are located on the Greenlane site.
The Starship Community Nursing Locality teams provide the following services:
School based healthcare and health promotion in priority primary and intermediate schools
School based immunisation programmes
Support for children with wetting and soiling problems
Acute and long term assessment and support for children and young people with health needs
Follow up on discharge from hospital, wound care, home IV medication administration
Wrap around Well Child Tamariki Ora home based services for families with children under 5 years of age including the B4 school check
Programmes to improve health and wellbeing