Edmonton’s Stollery Children’s Hospital recognized globally for pediatric pain management

Dana Nagel and her 15-year-old son, Cameron, are regulars at the Stollery Children’s Hospital.  

“There is nothing worse than seeing your child in pain,” said Nagel.

Cameron was born with muscular dystrophy and spina bifida, requiring multiple painful major surgeries. Pain, he felt, wasn’t always taken seriously.

“It was really hard, like, cause my emotions were all over the place and stuff. Sad, angry, mad,” said Cameron.

But in recent years, he’s noticed a change. Tuesday, the Stollery was recognized by non-profit childkind international as one of the very few hospitals on earth with world-class pain management practices.

“To have different ways of coping with it and having this culture change where you know that your child is being believed, and the pain is under control as best as it can be, it warms my heart,” said Dana.

Pain management is especially important when patients wait for treatment, and wait times continue to plague Alberta’s hospitals. 

A new MEI report reveals that wait times in Alberta’s emergency rooms are the longest of all provinces, with the median wait lasting nearly four hours. 

In Edmonton, we have the top three hospitals in Alberta with the longest wait times, and the U of A holds a wait time of eight and a half hours.

“It’s pretty much a given that we will have extended wait times,” said Dr. Samina Ali, a pediatric emergency doctor at Stollery Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Ali says wait times continue to be a work in progress, but becoming a newly certified Childkind International hospital shows that every child coming through the doors gets world-class pain treatment.

“We’re very good, in general, in health care communities at figuring out what’s going on, but with the competing priorities, with the time pressures, with the wait times, if we don’t have systems in place that make pain care automatic, it can be missed, and that’s what this ChildKind certification helps us do,” said Dr. Ali.

For the Nagels, knowing that pain is being taken seriously cuts down on the fear and anxiety of a hospital stay.

“I feel more happy and less nervous because everything’s going to be alright,” said Cameon.