The Paediatric Infant Perinatal Emergency Retrieval (PIPER) transfers sick babies from referring hospitals throughout Victoria and Southern New South Wales to the Royal Children's Hospital, Monash Children's Hospital, Royal Women's Hospital, Mercy Hospital for Women, Joan Kirner (Sunshine) and occasionally to other hospitals.

A vital part of PIPER Neonatal is:

• providing specialist advice to doctors, nurses and ambulance personnel,
• providing a Return Transport Service and
• providing a State-wide education service.

Retrieval Team

Responsibility for clinical advice and retrieval operations lies with the PIPER Consultant who supervises the retrieval teams. All emergency retrievals are performed by a Neonatal Fellow or Nurse Practitioner and a PIPER Neonatal nurse. PIPER Nurse Practitioners are permanent staff members with extensive experience in neonatal advanced practice and retrieval.  Medical staff are neonatal fellows with extra training in retrieval medicine. PIPER Neonatal retrieval nurses are experienced nursing staff with at least 3 years' experience in NICU/PICU, have post-graduate qualifications in either NICU or PICU nursing. All staff have additional training in retrieval medicine.