Monday, August 26, 2019
Watch: This Local Family Shares Their Premature Birth Story on Capitol Hill
As seen in the September/October 2019 issue of Advancing Care
One-year-old William Higgins, along with his parents, Victoria and Liam, were in Washington, D.C., recently, representing Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital, a member of the Westchester Medical Center Health Network (WMCHealth), on Capitol Hill during the Children’s Hospital Association’s Speak Up for Kids family advocacy activities.
Mary Delaney, Director of the Jodi Meilman Andreozzi Family Resource Program and Center at Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital, joined the Higgins family at the event.
Speak Up for Kids draws attention to issues surrounding pediatric care in the United States and support for advanced-care pediatric centers, such as the Valhalla-based Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital. The Higgins family — along with 49 other pediatric patients and their families — met with members of Congress and congressional staff members, and asked them to make children’s health a national priority.
(From left) Mary Delaney, Director of the Jodi Meilman Andreozzi Family Resource Program and Center at Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital; Sue Malfa, RN, Nurse manager of the Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (RNICU) at Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital; Liam, Victoria and William Higgins; and Michael Gewitz, MD, William Russell McCurdy Physician-in-Chief at Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital.
William and his twin brother, Aidan, who succumbed to his extreme prematurity, were previously patients at the Regional Neonatal ICU at Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital. The boys were born at 23 weeks’ gestation and weighed just over 3 pounds combined.
Learn more about their story by visiting mariafarerichildrens.org/higginsfamily