Even though he was not invited last week by Gov. Christopher Christie to help celebrate the saving of the life of the first baby thanks to a law he sponsored, local Assemblyman Jason O’Donnell said he knows he did the right thing.
The law, which took affect in September, requires that hospitals screen newborn infants for certain heart defects as part of the usual tests required before infants are released.
A baby born in Sussex County in October was determined as a result of this test to need immediate surgery and was rushed to Columbia University Medical Center to correct an abnormality. The baby otherwise looked fine and would not have been diagnosed in the hospital if the test hadn’t caught the problem.
“We do all these other tests on newborns, but not this one, and a heart defect is the number one cause of death among newborns.” – Jason O’Donnell
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“About five years ago when my son, Patrick, was born, the doctor thought something might be wrong,” O’Donnell said.
Patrick suffers from multiple handicaps, but at the time the doctor felt something more might be wrong. The night before Patrick was slated to leave the hospital, the doctor thought he detected a heart murmur. But this normally isn’t something to worry about, O’Donnell was told. A certain percentage of newborns have them, some due to difficult deliveries.
“To be on the safe side, the doctor asked if he could have the pediatric cardiologists check it out,” O’Donnell recalled.
There didn’t seem to be any urgency until after the test. Within minutes, the cardiologist ordered surgery.
Had the doctor not went the extra step to check on the heart problem, O’Donnell’s son would have died.
“We would have taken him home, and he might not have died that day, but within a week or 10 days, he might have,” O’Donnell said.
This, of course, started O’Donnell thinking, especially after he learned that there is a test that can be done cheaply on infants that would alert doctors to potential heart problems. But it was not being done routinely.
“It only takes a minute,” he said. “We do all these other tests on newborns, but not this one, and a heart defect is the number one cause of death among newborns.”
Some wouldn’t follow up
O’Donnell said this particularly affects families who might not have the resources to get to a doctor later.
“Many urban kids have no support system, and the only time we can be certain that they see a doctor is when they are still in the hospital,” he said. “My children go back to doctors for check-ups. My parents did the same for me. But in this case, why shouldn’t we do all that is possible to make sure these kids get everything checked before they leave the hospital?”
When O’Donnell took office as state assemblyman in 2010, the first bill he introduced was to get newborns tested for heart problems.
Other sponsors of the legislation included Assembly members Ruben J. Ramos Jr. and Connie Wagner, and senators Richard J. Codey and Joseph F. Vitale.
“It took me almost a year to get it into law,” he said. “There was some opposition. The insurance companies were leery.”
But O’Donnell talked with insurance leaders and members of the hospital association, explaining that if they managed to catch these things early, insurance companies and hospitals would pay less in the long run.
“We won them over, and the bill passed the legislature unanimously,” O’Donnell said.
Christie, however, took nearly 30 days to sign the bill into law, but the day after he did, the new law showed results, saving the life of a boy named Dylan.
The law requires that a pulse oximetry test be done on all newborns.
“It only takes one minute to do the test, the same time as it takes to take a temperature,” O’Donnell said. “Every kid should get whatever they need, and I intend to keep working toward that. We should be striving for perfection when it comes to kids’ health. If we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we give kids every advantage they need?”