Sick Kids Hospital is hoping local residents will consider them when making donations for this Giving Tuesday.

Child Life Specialist Madison Chin, pictured above, says they care for children from a lot of places, including the North Bay area.

“We see families from across the country, especially in the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit. We have families from northern Ontario, we get families from the east coast, because there’s a lot of very specialized care that the hospital provides that community hospitals refer families to us for,” she says.

As for donations, Chin says they’ve outgrown their building, both in terms of physical space and with technology.

“Things that were state-of-the-art a couple of decades ago are no longer state-of-the-art. By supporting things like the Child Life Program and allowing us to reach more families and children and also just building a new Sick Kids that we can serve families from across Canada as well as internationally,” she says.

Sick Kids says there are specific areas that donations will support:
– Build a new SickKids: We need buildings that lift – not limit – our ability to care for patients. We will construct a state-of-the-art hospital and patient support building to accommodate leading-edge medical care, matching our world-class expertise with the best clinical spaces.
– Continue investing in research: We will ramp up funding for clinical trials and research projects, to more quickly translate discoveries to the bedside. We will transform the way we do medicine to make a bigger impact on patients, sooner.
– Forge partnerships to improve child health: We will expand initiatives that build capacity, both at home and across the globe—delivering sustainable and integrated healthcare to children no matter where they live.

Child Life specialists aim to make the hospital an easier, less scary place to be.

“One of the things that we do is making sure that milestones are still being recognized. That’s one of my favourite things about working at Sick Kids is we make sure that birthdays are still celebrated, we make sure that holidays are still acknowledged,” Chin says. “We do some larger scale things every year, with the exception of this year, we throw a prom for all of the older kids in the hospital and that’s one of my favourite things.”

The Child Life team:
– Provide therapeutic play, music and art programs which are designed to reduce stress and help patients cope with hospitalization.
– Help prepare children for medical and surgical procedures.
– Provide emotional support to patients during times of stress.
– Produce 21 interactive closed-circuit TV shows a week, so kids don’t get bored.
– Staff all the rooms at SickKids where families and kids can go to have fun, feel good, and participate in kid-friendly activities.
– Promote a positive hospital experience for children, plan celebrity visits, and so much more.

Check out sickkidsgive.com for more on how to donate, or call 1-800-661-1083.

Giving Tuesday is considered the “Opening day of the giving season” a time when charities, companies and individuals join together and rally for favourite causes.

 

(Photo submitted)