Table 4.

Minimum healthcare worker complement allocated to each category of newborn inpatient care and the numbers required to provide services (in brackets)

Standard care	Intermediate care	Intensive care
Dedicated to the newborn unit
Medical officer OR Paediatric clinical officer (24-hour cover by ≥1 medical officer/clinical officer dedicated to the neonatal unit) Registered nurse (1:5/6 patients) (a ratio of one nurse to five newborns was recommended, but in line with recommendations from the LINC example (42), a ratio of 1:6 was deemed acceptable) Nutritionist1	Paediatrician (one on call) Medical officer (24-hour cover by ≥1 medical officer dedicated to the neonatal unit) Neonatal nurse Registered nurse (1 nurse of either designation:3 patients) Nutritionist1 Counsellor1	Neonatologist1 Paediatrician (need ≥1 covering the ward 24/7) Medical officer (no consensus on numbers) Neonatal intensive care nurses Neonatal nurses (1 nurse of either designation:1 patient) Nutritionist1 Counsellors1 Physiotherapist1 Occupational therapist1 Laboratory technician1 Biomedical engineer1
Available from the hospital to tend to newborns in the unit as needed (≥1 available to cover neonates)
	Physiotherapist Occupational therapist Laboratory technician Ophthalmologist	Subspecialists such as Cardiologist Paediatric surgeon Neurosurgeon Plastic surgeon Ophthalmologist Anaesthetist Radiographer/radiologist

LINC, Limpopo Initiative for Newborn Care.