RACING driver and dad Andy Priaulx is helping to buy a new brain monitor for the special care baby unit at the Princess Elizabeth Hospital. His children, Sebastian and Danniella, were born prematurely and needed assistance in the first few weeks of their life. A Grand Prix charity dinner next month will help raise the £4,000 needed for a monitor that helps to check the brain of premature babies. Mr Priaulx and his wife, Jo, hope to raise more money in the future and have set up a trust for the unit.

‘Jo and I set up the Priaulx Premature Baby Foundation after the birth of our second child, Danniella, who was born five weeks early,’ said Mr Priaulx.

‘Our first child, Sebastian, was also four weeks early and weighed only 3lb 14oz. The help and support we received for both births were amazing and the effort that goes into the care of premature babies is second to none.’

The unit can hold three intensive care babies and also has facilities for special care, including two single rooms in which mothers can be near their infants.

Paediatrician Bryan Lean said: ‘The Health Department can give only so much money, so a donation makes it a gold standard, as opposed to a normal standardised unit, and it makes such a difference to the overall care of the child.’

He said that the new equipment would help to monitor for normal and abnormal brain activity.

‘When you have babies in an intensive facility, they are more vulnerable to having seizures. It may be very difficult to detect that when they are sedated and ventilated, so the monitor will help monitor brain activity, so that otherwise-hidden fits can then be treated.’