Your Impact Matters
As the world keeps changing, so have children’s health issues. Kids these days are facing more health issues than ever before, and they need pediatric care that can serve their growing needs. But to make the changes needed to serve them best, CHEO Foundation needs your support. Join our $220 million campaign to transform pediatric care.
You can make an impact on the lives of kids these days.
Mental Health
What Has Changed
Teen anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideations have doubled in the last two decades. A significant number of teens struggle with substance use disorders. Since the start of the pandemic, CHEO has seen a 60 percent increase in inpatient hospitalizations for eating disorders and a 126 percent increase in emergency department presentations. The need for mental health services is outstripping the ability to meet it. Many kids simply can’t access the urgent care they need to help them navigate their crisis and develop skills to reduce the need for re-hospitalization.
How We Can Help, Together
Our focus is unwavering as we work toward enhancing access to acute mental health care for kids in crisis. CHEO is expanding its emergency assessment facilities and dedicated mental health rooms. It’s also making it easier for families to find the right care at the right time with 1Call1Click.ca, a donor-funded service that coordinates over 60 organizations offering mental health and addictions care for children. With your help, we can invest in new solutions that can improve care for kids in crisis to ensure they get the care they need when they need it most while also leading to better long-term outcomes.
Help us address the mental health crisis so kids have access to the support they desperately need.
Complex Care
What Has Changed
Since the 1970s, the number of children with complex care needs has skyrocketed, and more kids are living with physical, developmental and intellectual challenges. This is in part due to medical and surgical advances that have led to lower mortality rates. However, many of these children subsequently face long-term complications or medical challenges. These life-saving advances also require life-long care. Accessing care isn’t always easy though: families need to coordinate care and extensive travel for children with complex needs, adding obstacles to already challenging situations.
How We Can Help, Together
Kids—and their families—need care built around their needs. CHEO is introducing a new care model to improve coordination, delivery, and efficiency for children with complex needs through the Integrated Treatment Centre. The goal is to reduce wait times, improve the patient and family experience, and provide more seamless care for those with complex needs. With your help, we can build this new model of care to support kids facing life-long medical challenges.
Together, we can design a new way to support and care for kids living with complex care needs.
Diagnostics
What Has Changed
Too many children are dealing with undiagnosed illnesses. Others are living with rare diseases that can be very difficult to treat. Children with undiagnosed or rare diseases often experience significant delays in diagnosis which can lead to prolonged suffering and uncertainty. What’s more, families often face emotional and psychological challenges like isolation and stress as they navigate their child’s illness. Getting a much-needed diagnosis often takes too long—time many kids don’t have. Today, 25 percent of children born with a rare disease don’t see their 10th birthday.
How We Can Help, Together
For kids facing rare diseases or living with an unknown illness, early diagnosis is crucial. This allows them to get the necessary care needed to set them on a healthy path. CHEO is enhancing its diagnostic tools to find health problems earlier, leveraging advanced tools like AI to help discover rare genetic diseases, and leading research for new pediatric treatments. CHEO is also expanding its diagnostic capabilities and medical imaging suites to meet increasing needs and reduce wait times. With your help, we can invest in more research and better diagnostic tools to give every child the best start possible.
By enhancing diagnostic tools and research, you help us give kids a brighter future.
Emergency Care
What Has Changed
Kids are waiting too long for emergency care—and shockingly, often longer than adults. CHEO’s Emergency Department was built for 150 visits per day but now welcomes over 200 patients daily, with an average wait time of over five hours. Children visit from across Eastern Ontario, Western Quebec, Northern Ontario and as far north as Nunavut. With more need for emergency care and less access to family doctors, emergency room wait times continue to increase to unacceptable levels.
How We Can Help, Together
To better serve kids these days, CHEO is revolutionizing pediatric emergency care by expanding its Emergency Department to improve access and reduce wait times. This will include adding over 7,000 square feet, new beds, single rooms, and a dedicated space for mental health patients in crisis. The Kids Come First program is expanding to provide integrated and accessible family-centred care. With your help, we can address the urgent need for improved emergency care for children.
Improve access to emergency care so that kids have the help they need when they need it most.
Surgery
What Has Changed
In the past, kids involved in serious accidents or diagnosed with cancer, cystic fibrosis, or another chronic illness had limited lifespans. Thanks to game-changing medical and surgical advancements, they can now live longer and have a better quality of life. In 2023-24 alone, CHEO performed 7,392 surgeries, averaging over 20 per day. It’s astonishing to think that our world-renowned surgeons do their work in the same operating rooms that have been without upgrades since CHEO opened its doors in 1974.
How We Can Help, Together
CHEO is modernizing its operating rooms and surgical equipment to better support its pediatric surgical team with the latest technology. These crucial updates will help them to do what they do best—enable life-saving surgeries on growing teens to the tiniest of preemies. CHEO will also equip teams with AI tools to improve surgical outcomes with precise, real-time data analyses that enhance accuracy and safety. With your help, we will deliver state-of-the-art surgical care for children and enhance efficacy, safety, and overall outcomes for pediatric patients.
Help us improve medical and surgical outcomes through better research, modernized spaces and the latest technology integration.
