CHEO welcomes investments in critical care capacity

Ottawa – November 28, 2022 – CHEO is welcoming a much-needed investment to right-size its pediatric intensive and critical care services.

As of this week, the Ontario government has approved new, permanent funding that will:

• Increase the number of funded ‘level 2’ critical care beds from six to 12. (These are beds for children ​with acute illnesses that require continuous monitoring of their vital signs and extra nursing support. They're also beds for kids fighting severe infections such as meningitis, those with illnesses resulting in single organ dysfunction and those who may need non-invasive ventilation to support their breathing.)
• Increase the number of funded ‘level 3’ critical care beds from 7 to 13. (These are beds for children ​with the most critical illnesses including sepsis, those requiring advanced ventilation to support their breathing, trauma victims and those on heart-lung bypass (ECMO)​, to name just a few examples.)

This new, permanent funding will allow CHEO to catch up on the growing needs of the population and continue to deliver life-saving care to the region's youngest patients and their families.

As the only hospital between Toronto and Montreal with a Level 3 Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, CHEO serves a huge area and one whose population of young people is growing fast. Between 2016 and 2021,Ottawa’s child and youth population grew at nine times the rate of Ontario’s.

These investments come at a time where CHEO, like pediatric hospitals across the country, is dealing with a significant surge in volumes and acuity of their young patients.

Quotes:

“CHEO’s PICU has had seven funded beds for as long as anyone can remember. Over the past two decades, the population has grown, new diseases like H1N1 and Covid have appeared, and the prevalence of other illnesses, including pediatric cancer, eating disorders and inflammatory bowel disease, has increased. That has meant that our critical care capacity has become seriously outgrown. This investment is key to helping us deliver the best and safest care possible for the future. While our goal is always to keep kids out of these beds, we know that they will serve our young patients and enable us to alleviate the constant pressures on our staff, medical staff and learners.” – Alex Munter, CHEO’s President and CEO

“Our government is taking action to address long-standing capacity issues. We want to make sure that our pediatric hospitals, like CHEO, are right-sized to the needs of our growing population and continue to provide world-class critical care when families need it most. We are proud to be investing in CHEO to help double their pediatric and intensive critical care bed capacity.” – Sylvia Jones, Ontario’s Deputy Premier and Minister of Health

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