Children's Hospital at London Health Sciences Centre

The Children's Hospital at London Health Sciences Centre is a children's hospital in London, Ontario, Canada that provides paediatric care for patients from the London metropolitan area and the rest of Southwestern Ontario.[1]

Children's Hospital at
London Health Sciences Centre
London Health Sciences Centre
Perspective drawing of the proposed War Memorial Children’s Hospital, March, 1921
Geography
Location800 Commissioners Road East
London, Ontario, Canada
Organization
Care systemPublic Medicare (Canada) (OHIP)
TypeSpecialist
Affiliated universitySchulich School of Medicine & Dentistry
Services
Beds70[1]
SpecialityPediatrics
History
Opened1917
Links
Websitewww.lhsc.on.ca/About_Us/Childrens_Hospital/
ListsHospitals in Canada

A separate Children's hospital, named the War Memorial Children's Hospital was completed in 1922.[1][2] It was built in the same art deco style as the School of Medicine and Nurse's residence that shared a block with it.

The Children's Hospital shared facilities with Victoria Hospital since 1985, when it was renamed Children's Hospital of Western Ontario.[1] The Children's Hospital acquired its current name, in 2007, when the handsome 85 year old building was determined to be too old to be worth updating, when the Children's Hospital was moved into the Victoria Hospital complex, across the street.

The Victoria Hospital complex is the largest hospital in southwestern Ontario.[3]

The Globe and Mail called the hospital "One of Canada's most prestigious medical institutions".[4]

In 1951 the Children's Hospital was the first facility in the world to deploy a Cobalt-60 Beam Therapy Unit to deliver radiation therapy to cancer patients.[2]

In 2011 the hospital took the rare step of responding to a viral video.[4] Fox News focussed on the hospital's recommendation to remove life support from a brain dead newborn. Other American sites characterized the hospital's recommendation as an example of a Canadian "death panel". The infant, known as "baby Joseph", had been born with a "severe and progressively deteriorating neurological condition." His body was only being kept alive through a ventilator and has a feeding tube. Hospital medical staff determined he would never be able to show any signs of consciousness, and recommended removing his life support tubes.

In October 2018 Ontario's first instance of a new kind of robot assisted brain surgery was performed at the hospital.[3][5] The fourteen year old patient, had been suffering disabling epileptic seizures almost his entire life. In August 2019 he was deemed seizure free. The hospital is the only facility in Ontario performing robot-assisted stereoelectroencephalography surgery. Hospitals in Calgary and Montreal are also capable of performing this surgery.

In 2019 the hospital developed a dispute with the TLC Foundation.[6][7] The local man who founded the organization was barred from visiting the hospital.[8] In 2019 the hospital introduced a policy barring strangers delivering gifts to patients in person. The policy requires gifts to be vetted by hospital staff, to preserve the safety of patients, and to make sure no patient receives unwelcome visitors, or gifts.

A young patient, with brain cancer, who the Foundation's founder had been visiting for four years, released a video, shortly before Christmas, 2019, where he characterized the hospital's policy as stripping him of one of his few friends.[9]

References
  1. "Our History". Children's Hospital at London Health Sciences Centre. London Health Sciences Centre. Retrieved October 11, 2017.
  2. "Cultural Heritage Assessment: Buildings in the South Street Hospital Complex, London, Ontario" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-05-04. Retrieved 2020-05-03. During the 1920s, three buildings on a larger scale and using imported red tapestry brick were built along the north side of South Street: the Medical School, the Nurses’ Residence, and the War Memorial Children’s Hospital. While differing in scale and materials from those across South Street, they shared with the earlier pavilion hospital a concern for the aesthetic development of the streetscape and for purposely sympathetic architectural designs.
  3. "LHSC marks Ontario-first robot brain surgery on teen with epilepsy". The London Free Press. August 2019.
  4. Carly Weeks (2011-03-01). "Hospital confronts social media uprising over care of dying baby". The Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on 2020-05-02. Retrieved 2020-04-30. Attention to the case by Fox News in the United States and conservative and anti-abortion websites sparked an overwhelming reaction, with some people condemning the hospital and Canada's health-care system for not giving Joseph the care his parents have requested, while others have suggested the hospital is interfering with his treatment or that a death panel has ordered the baby to be killed.
  5. "Robot-assisted pediatric brain surgery a first for Ontario". CBC News. 2019-08-04. Retrieved 2020-04-30. The life of a London teen with epilepsy has been transformed thanks to robot-assisted neurosurgery performed at the London Health Sciences Centre Children's Hospital.
  6. "LHSC says TLC Foundation not banned if Larizza follows policies". CTV News. London, Ontario. 2019-11-15. Retrieved 2020-04-30. For his part Larizza says he is going to continue to giving those gifts despite the current ban. 'I'm going to make sure we find a way to get gifts to these kids...no matter what we have to do.'
  7. Andrew Lupton (2019-11-13). "LHSC bans man who's been giving gifts to sick, dying children for 30 years". CBC News. Retrieved 2020-04-30. Larizza gathers gift requests from kids and delivers the gifts to their hospital beds. In each case, Larizza says he only delivers a gift with the parents' consent and if they put his name on the hospital's visitors list.
  8. Brent Lale (2019-11-13). "Foundation that delivers gifts to sick kids at Children's Hospital 'banned'". CTV London. London, Ontario. Retrieved 2020-04-30. After more than three decades of delivering gifts and wishes to sick, terminal and underprivileged kids, LHSC Children's Hospital says Larizza will no longer be allowed to continue, due to an access policy change.
  9. Brent Lale (2019-12-22). "Cancer patient wants TLC founder allowed in hospital". CTV London. Londone, Ontario. Retrieved 2020-04-30. Jesse Brissette posted a video Saturday of his son Carter who has befriended Leo while battling brain cancer for the past four years. 'I don't have many friends being in a wheelchair,' Carter says in a soft voice in the video. 'Having the hospital take my friends away is heartbreaking.'

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