“My role is really rewarding as it is lovely to work with children and their families and to see them progress over a number of years under our care.”
Debbie works alongside a small team of specialists – the dietitians who provide specialist nutritional treatment for children and babies admitted to Oldham Hospital.
All the paediatric dietitians work within the paediatric specialist teams on the children’s ward and in the neonatal intensive care unit and their role is to provide nutritional assessment and individualised treatment plans for children with a wide range of diseases or problems which affect their eating and growth.
They commonly see babies who are failing to grow at the correct rate or who may have feeding difficulties due to medical conditions including cerebral palsy, multiple allergies or metabolic disorders, or they may need to provide tube feeding for the neonatal babies because they have been born prematurely and are unable to feed on a bottle or from their mother. They also work as part of the diabetes multidisciplinary team to educate children and their families on managing diabetes in the early years.