Former Patients From Cottage Children’s Hospital Reunite With Doctors and Nurses

Former patients from Cottage Children’s Hospital reunited with nurses, doctors and staff this weekend.

The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit hosted the 27th annual NICU Reunion for NICU graduates at the Santa Barbara Zoo.

Hundreds of people showed up to say thank you to the staff.

Some of the young patients were recently released from the NICU, others were treated months, even years ago.

Rob and Kate Hill flew in all the way from England to show their appreciation.

Last year, Kate was visiting Santa Barbara when she went into labor. Her baby, born three and a half months early, spent several months in the NICU.

“We are eternally grateful. There is nothing we can really ever do to thank them for what they did for our little boy and are family as a whole and he’s thriving and it’s certainly comes down to the care he received at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital,” said Rob Hill.

The Hills’ say the doctors and nurses who cared for them are ‘friends for life’.

In fact, they even named their son Alex, after one of their doctors.

According to Cottage Hospital, since the NICU first opened on December 20, 1987, more than 8,700 newborns from Atascadero to Thousand Oaks have received NICU care.