Blood tests cease to be a pain in the arm

By MARTIN JOHNSTON health reporter

A hundred young heart patients are welcoming pin-pricks in their fingers because they will replace the regular trauma of painful blood tests.

A charity group, Heart Children NZ, has bought 100 blood-testing kits, costing $1125 each, that can be used at home by parents or visiting nurses.

A group of parents were taught how to use the devices at Green Lane Hospital in Auckland last week.

The hand-held Machines are similar to those used by diabetics, but test for coagulation factor instead of blood sugar levels.

Blood samples are traditionally taken by inserting a needle into a vein, usually in a hand or arm. They are painful and can be even more difficult to obtain from children's small limbs.

Children who need them regularly can become traumatised and sometimes have to be held down.

But the so-called CoaguChek testers rely on just a drop of blood from a fingertip, produced by a pin-prick device.

The results can be phoned through to Green Lane, and adjustments made to the amount of blood-thinning Warfarin pills the patient is required to take.

Peter Courtney, of Heart Children, estimates that around 500 children suffer from heart conditions that require them to take Warfarin for the rest of their lives to avoid potentially fatal blood clots.

The families of most of the 100 Warfarin-dependent child heart patients in the Auckland region now have the testing kits.

Children's heart ward charge nurse manager Heather Spinetto said finger-pricks were the ward's preferred method of blood-testing all its children, including the Warfarin-dependent ones, unless a large amount of blood was needed.

She said the aim was to make the CoaguChek kits available to all children who had to take Warfarin for heart conditions.

Twenty-two-month-old Jack Perry, of Hastings, has had six operations at Green Lane to correct a congenital heart defect and doctors say he has a good outlook. At present he has a line installed in a vein, from which blood samples can be taken.

And while he does not have to take Warfarin, he has had plenty of traditional blood tests as well as finger-prick tests.

His grandmother, Robyn Perry, says that any needles are traumatic for children. "A new procedure that lessens the stress and pain is wonderful."

* Donations to Heart Children New Zealand can be made to PO Box 26473, Epsom, Auckland, or by calling (09) 638-9960.