Children’s hospital launches hospice-friendly programme

DESPITE advances in medicine, over 135 patients attending Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Dublin die every year.

Because the death of a child remains the most challenging experience for health professionals, the hospital has launched the first children’s hospice-friendly programme. The programme, run by the Irish Hospice Foundation, is aimed at improving the culture and care regarding death, dying and bereavement as they affect children, parents and hospital staff.

“The death of a child is the most tragic and devastating experience that a parent or guardian will deal with in life,” said Sharon Hayden, the hospital’s deputy director of nursing. “A child will always be a child to a parent even into adulthood. As healthcare professionals, this is the most challenging experience that we will meet in caring for a sick child and their family.”

Ms Hayden said the hospital was the first to begin providing communication training for staff on how to deal with bad news. While it was usually the medical consultant who had to deliver the bad news, such information was always extremely difficult to take in.

Other staff members needed to be clued into the situation so they could recognise when parents of a dying child needed extra support.

“It is an absolutely awful situation for any parent to be in and all we can do is try and communicate the information as clearly as we can,” said Ms Hayden.

Ms Hayden, who is chairwoman of the hospital’s death, dying and bereavement committee, also pointed out that half of the patients who died every year were inpatients.

Ms Hayden was glad the programme was in place because it got everyone in the hospital talking about dying, death and bereavement.

“We can do things well but we can always improve.”

Our Lady’s is the only children’s hospital among 40 hospitals participating in the programme supported by the Health Service Executive, Health Information and Quality Authority and Atlantic Philanthropies.

As well as dealing with bad news, the programme also examines how staff of different nationalities and religions respond to death: organising special bags for children’s belongings and developing more privacy areas and family facilities.

Eugene Murray, chief executive of the Irish Hospice Foundation, said an estimated 1,369 Irish children lived with life-limiting illnesses and an average of between 536 and 592 died each year before their 18th birthday.

Mr Murray said the programme was designed to ensure that all deaths, including those of children, were as dignified and comfortable as possible for them and their families.