Paediatrics

COVID-19 Kids: Have you checked the children? Understanding the unintended consequences of COVID-19

Fortunately, COVID-19 in children is generally mild. However, the necessary public health mitigation measures to control community transmission have resulted in many unintended consequences for families and children.
How are Victorian children tracking during the pandemic? What can families do to help their children through these uncertain times? And how are young people with disabilities faring? 

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CAR T Cell Therapy for acute leukaemia: The RCH experience as the national paediatric referral centre

Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T cells have revolutionised treatment for patients with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) where standard therapies have failed.  We reflect on our first 12 months as the first national paediatric referral centre providing CAR T cell treatment to children with relapsed or refractory ALL from Australia and New Zealand, and highlight the collective efforts and lessons for the hospital-wide CAR T cell team. 

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How can a 10 year old be sent to prison in Australia?

Currently in Australia, children as young as 10 years old can be arrested, held in police cells, taken before a magistrate and incarcerated in prison-like settings.  Most children who are incarcerated are never convicted of a crime. 

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From scarlet fever to polio: epidemics and pandemics in the history of the Royal Children’s Hospital

In the early decades of European settlement, Australia was free of some infectious diseases such as measles, scarlet fever and diphtheria which could not survive the long voyage to Australia. When these infections did arrive, as shipping times reduced, resistance was low and severe epidemics occurred, especially among children in the crowded slums of the cities, and among indigenous populations who were previously free of these infections.

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COVID-19: Spotlight on Schools and Kids in Melbourne

It is well established that kids get less sick from COVID-19 than adults. However, what do we know about the extent infected children contribute to spreading the virus?
With some areas of Melbourne approaching their third week of lockdown and widespread community transmission, how do we make decisions about when it’s safe to reopen schools and what can we do to prevent kids from transmitting the virus? At Melbourne’s largest children’s hospital, we will hear what the commonest conditions are that are causing kids to get sick during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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COVID-19: Mums and Bubs

The effect of epidemics on pregnant women and newborns has often been neglected, so what do we know about the effects of COVID-19 in pregnancy and newborns? 
As vaccines and other treatments are developed, should pregnant women also be included in clinical trials?
In low- and middle-income countries, disruption of essential maternity and newborn services may erode many of the gains made in maternal and child health over the past two decades.

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Choosing Wisely – Improving value of care following Covid19

In the era of Covid-19, the imperative to manage our finite healthcare resources has become greater than ever. RCH became a Choosing Wisely Champion Hospital in 2019 and is committed to providing the safest, high-quality, high-value care for our patients.  Through Choosing Wisely, the RCH is part of a worldwide campaign challenging clinicians to think differently about the way we provide care, and to challenge the status quo when what we might normally do is no longer adding value to patient outcomes.

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COVID-19: Decisions, ethics – and the impact on staff

COVID-19 has resulted in a flurry of high-stakes decision-making, at a public health level and an individual patient level, with significant impacts on how children are cared for, and how staff work. Many of these decisions have ethical dimensions.

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What’s COVID-19 doing to our blood vessels?

Blood-clotting complications are rapidly emerging as a significant part of the pathogenesis of COVID-19. There are reports of otherwise well people with COVID-10 having strokes, pulmonary emboli and heart attacks, and children with inflammation of their blood vessels. In recent weeks series of cases of a multi-system inflammatory condition, some resembling Kawasaki disease, have been reported in children in Europe, UK and USA.

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