Everyday matters in the life of a child and each day, our teams show up to help overcome obstacles, barriers and concerns to support children, youth and their loved ones.
Heading into year four since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have learned many lessons, faced recurring and new challenges and hit many new milestones.
While the spring of 2022 saw an end to masks mandates in Ontario, CHEO opted to maintain strong public health measures to protect our most vulnerable. We’ve been as busy as ever. In fact, May 2022 was the busiest May in the history of our Emergency Department (ED) — and our second busiest month ever. We saw more kids who were sicker than usual for that time of year. Added to this, staffing continued to be a challenge across the organization.
In November, an unprecedented tridemic hit pediatric institutions across the country and it was felt here as well. We partnered with regional hospitals to redirect where possible and work hard to provide the care children, youth and their families needed. We are grateful for our partners who answered the calls: Thank you Ontario Health, The Ottawa Hospital, Queensway Carleton Hospital and Hôpital Montfort.
As part of our vision to provide the best care for every child and youth, we launched new initiatives such as opening a new state-of-the-art ‘IR Cath and Sim’ Lab, setting up a second temporary intensive care unit to meet the viral season demand and achieving official French services health provider designation – to better meet the needs of our francophone community. We also worked with our colleagues at the CHEO Research Institute and CHEO Foundation, to study recovery time for concussion patients, so we can get kids back to doing the things they love and raised a record-breaking $11.8 million dollars at the annual CHEO telethon.
With cautious optimism, we are taking a deep breath and tackling the future with great optimism for smoother days ahead, but always preparing for challenging ones.
Jo-Anne & Alex
Highlights of our year
March 2022
April 2022
May 2022
June 2022
August 2022
September 2022
October 2022
November 2022
February 2023
March 2023
2022-23 in statistics
| Clinic, service or program | Total visits/patients served |
|---|---|
| Ambulatory Care visits | 98,570 |
| Medical Imaging | 87,296 |
| Mental Health (outpatient) | 19,257 |
| Hematology and Oncology | 11,779 |
| Genetics | 6,588 |
| Emergency Department | 75,794 |
| Surgeries | 6,456 |
| Inpatient admissions | 6,951 |
| Children's Treatment Centre | 27,639 |