By Sarah Stone

Give A Little Life campaign close to home for P.A. officer

Dec 2, 2014 | 5:36 AM

One family is happy to see that this year’s Give A Little Life campaign will help provide the nursery and pediatric ward at the Victoria Hospital with much-needed equipment.

Jesse Barlow, a sergeant with the Prince Albert Police Service (PAPS) and president of the Police Association, has a newborn daughter currently using the pediatric unit.

On Oct. 30, his wife went into the hospital, 32-weeks pregnant with complications.  He said since then they bounced back and forth and between the Victoria Hospital and a hospital in Saskatoon.

On Nov. 16, Barlow’s daughter was born at 35 weeks, which is premature.

“She had to spend the week and a half here, or so, in an isolette, which is like a little house that keeps her warm and monitored, so she’s still in there today,” he said.

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“You think that babies are born and they’re healthy and they’re with their mothers and their family in their own labour rooms but any given time I’ve seen eight, nine, 10 babies that are hooked up to monitors and have IVs and it’s just the equipment is so important, and if they don’t have that I don’t what they would do.”

Barlow said if the Victoria Hospital didn’t have the equipment his daughter needed, he would have to drive back and forth daily to Saskatoon.

“To have the opportunity for this equipment to be here, it really makes it easier on a family, and my son can see me every day now, whereas before I was having to stay in Saskatoon and I think having this equipment here, along with the professional staff, is so important,” he said.

“If you have that feeling in the pit of your stomach it’s the right thing to do, then you should donate because it is the right thing to do,” he said.

“Reach down in your heart and think about yourself; if you’re not a parent you will be a parent in the future hopefully … until you have to utilize what you’re donating to, you don’t really realize the importance of it.  To see the little [compromised] babies in the nursery every day is heart-wrenching,” he said, adding it doesn’t have to be your own child to know the importance of these units.

It’s not just the Prince Albert community that sees the worth in the nursery and pediatric wards.  Barlow said sitting in the nursery days on end, he sees babies from the north and surrounding area, as well.

To help out with the cause, the Prince Albert Police Association is matching donations made by the Prince Albert Fire Department (PAFD) in a Twitter campaign. The PAFD is donating $1 for each tweet or retweet with the hashtag #Helpthevic14 up to $2,000.

“The initiative that the firefighters came up with was fantastic and we’re just kind of helping them out,” he said.

He hopes this will inspire other organizations, including PAPS, to “dig down and donate.”

Give A Little Life day takes place on Friday from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m.

For more information about the event, click here. 

sstone@panow.com

On Twitter: @sarahstone84