Sandringham Hospital will soon offer specialist care to sick babies thanks to a funding boost from the Department of Human Services.

The hospital will receive funding for a Special Care Nursery.

It will contain three specialised nursery cots to provide the best possible medical care for newborn babies who are ill but do not require the critical care provided in a high-level special care nursery or intensive care unit (ICU).

Recruitment of specialised midwifery staff also will take place to provide the best possible care to its tiny patients.

The nursery will cater primarily for babies born at Sandringham Hospital who would otherwise need to be transferred to a tertiary hospital for more complex care.

But babies at other hospitals who need a specialist care, but do not require admission into ICU, could be transferred to Sandringham Hospital, freeing up neo-natal intensive care cots for babies who need specialist care.

This development comes at a time when birth rates at Sandringham Hospital are at a peak.

The number of babies born in the hospital jumped from 727 in 2003 to 1,006 in 2005.

Recently a lactation service was introduced and home-based maternity services expanded to cater for the growing number of parents having their children at the hospital.