Thanks to your support, The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) is home to the critically important Apheresis Service. An innovative therapeutic process, apheresis involves the filtering and removal of blood components to have potentially life saving impacts.

The new service positions the RCH as an early adopter of innovative therapies, caring for some of the hospital’s most vulnerable patients. Apheresis can be used to assist with the care of patients across the hospital, including those undergoing stem cell transplants, sickle cell disease and leukaemia, and to assist with the management of organ rejection or dysfunction following transplantation.

Apheresis provides critically ill children access to both standard and new innovative and cutting edge treatments, offering those with previously incurable cancers an established therapy to battle the disease. Thanks to the Good Friday Appeal and community support, the ability to access on-demand apheresis therapies will also mean that acutely ill children, for example those at risk of stroke and multi-organ failure, can receive this life-saving emergency care.