This year, most of us won't get to see the family members we usually do around the holidays. But for patients at SickKids, they're hoping they can at least have one parent by their side.
On Thursday, NEWSTALK1010 will be holding its annual Gift of Giving radiothon in support of SickKids from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on The Rush. The event has never been as important as it is this year.
CLICK HERE to become a monthly donor today. Every new monthly donor who signs up before December 17 will be eligible to win a brand new Google Nest Mini smart speaker from NEWSTALK 1010.
With major fundraisers being cancelled or transformed due to COVID-19, and the need for the new hospital more visible than ever before, SickKids needs your help.
In part one of her series Saving SickKids: Rebuilding the House of Hope, NEWSTALK1010's Ashley Legassic explores just how quickly everyone inside SickKids had to pivot during the pandemic.
It was after the announcement from the World Health Organization that everything changed. For most of us, our lives have been turned upside down in some way shape or form since March 11 when the pandemic was first declared.
For SickKids Hospital in Toronto, there was no time to sit and think. They had to act immediately. It was time for doctors, nurses, every single staff member in the hospital, to change everything they knew.
"I think all of us have had to step up to provide more outward emotional support and we recognize that, because we recognized that we needed it amongst each other as a team."
For emergency room physician Dr. Natasha Collia, it meant not being able to physically connect with the parents and caretakers of patients — not being able to touch an arm when delivering bad news, no hugs for anyone who needed one.
"What COVID's done for us, is it's really heightened how important basic human connections are in our every day life."
Dr. Lennox Huang, the vice president and Chief Medical Officer of Health, says patient care changed. The roles of healthcare workers became even more important once the pandemic hit.
With only one caretaker allowed in the room with a child doctors and nurses stepped up with emotional support.
"There's a lot of times there's things that perhaps isn't explicitly in the job description that we all do, and that may be offering comfort to a child at times when a parent can't be at the bedside," Huang says. "For the healthcare team directly, restricting the number of visitors has had the effect of making communication that much more complicated."
Child Life Specialist Madison Chin has been part of a team that tries to make that process less complicated. She works in the blood and marrow unit, and child life specialists are trying to give some sense of normalcy in a time that's anything but ordinary.
"Our goal has pivoted to creating more fun opportunities right at the bedside," Chin says. "So that they still, again, have that break in their day when they're not thinking about their treatments, or upcoming procedures, or any other stressful thing that they might be experiencing."
Chin says they're prioritizing things like pretend play, or medical play, to allow children to express their emotions. But if they notice some signs of anxiety or depression in this ever-changing time of COVID...
"We have a really great allied health team that can support families through that."