RCH is excited to be celebrating Allied Health Professionals Day on 14 October 2020. Allied Health Professionals Day first began in the UK in 2018 and has since become an international event to recognise and celebrate the Allied Health Professional community.
Vernon Collins Oration 2020
Championing child rights amidst the chaos of COVID-19
Professor Elizabeth Elliott, AM
The Consultative Council on Obstetric and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity (CCOPMM) monitors the causes and factors involved in all child deaths throughout Victoria, and provides recommendations to Government, health care professionals and the community. In recent years the Council has identified the social and economic gradient in risk of child deaths, which includes virtually all causes, from accidental trauma, drowning, SIDS, infections and chronic illnesses. The Council has long recommended improvements in the systems for provision of child welfare and support to families who are vulnerable, especially families of children with chronic illness, and these needs are magnified in the COVID-19 pandemic era.
There has in recent years been a rapid increase in the number and complexity of clinical trials and novel therapies for neurogenetic conditions. Many of these conditions are individually rare, but their impact upon affected children and their families may be very severe. While the increasing awareness and availability of new treatments brings great hope and excitement for all involved in care of these children, it also presents significant challenges for clinicians and for patients and their families.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Creating a preferred future implies vision, thoughtfulness and actions. It requires knowledge and skills that are developed over time. To craft a future for ourselves or to contribute to the crafting of another’s future, means we need to think and act creatively and thoughtfully.
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.
