What’s Up With Kids These Days?
Canadians get the sense that children and youth have more health challenges than ever before. In fact, 4 out of 5 Canadians think that kids these days are facing more health issues than kids in the past. And they would be right. Over the past few decades, there’s been a dramatic increase in both the number and complexity of pediatric health issues facing children and youth. As their needs continue to evolve, so must the care, resources and innovative solutions available to support them.
Kids these days are facing more health issues than ever before.
In the ‘70s and ‘80s, kids often visited the emergency department or the hospital for breathing issues like asthma, injuries like broken bones, and abdominal problems like colitis. Today, more children and youth come in for mental health crises, physical disabilities or life-threatening allergies, diabetes or cancer. Many experience chronic pain, deal with autism, have congenital heart defects, or live with rare diseases, to name a few.
Kids these days imagine a better future
The world has also changed. From social media’s impact to the disruption caused by a global pandemic, the struggles kids are facing are very different than they used to be.
As Canada’s capital continues to grow, change and become more diverse, kids these days need pediatric care that can grow with them. They need better access to care, closer to home and when they need it most. They also need innovative treatments, technologies, and therapies that help them live their best lives. Whether a child lives in Ottawa, Kingston, Brockville, a rural community, or Northern Canada, they deserve timely access to the care they need.
Over the next 10 years, CHEO will remodel, transform and build to meet the growing and increasingly complex needs of children and youth. Through expanded access to care and continued innovation, CHEO will help more children get the care they need sooner and closer to home, benefiting from new treatments, technologies, and models of care. CHEO has also committed to reducing by 50 percent the number of children waiting longer than clinically recommended for services.
To help make this future possible, the CHEO Foundation is launching a $220 million fundraising campaign to transform pediatric care. Join us – because kids these days could really use your help.
