Dr Deb Farrell1, Dr Paul Holmes1
1Children’s Health Queensland Retrieval Service, Brisbane, Australia
Abstract:
Childhood death is a rare event however it does still occur. Over 400 children and adolescents died in Queensland over the 12 months prior to June 2022.
As the Queensland statewide paediatric critical care retrieval service, Childrens’ Health Queensland Retrieval Service (CHQRS) has a small but significant workload relating to childhood death. This talk will review and reflect on the spectrum of paediatric end of life care that CHQRS undertakes. This includes our involvement in acute and unexpected deaths during resuscitation events at referring hospitals and providing support both in clinical decision making and care of staff during and after the event; through to being a key partner in the planned palliation of children with life-limiting conditions and transporting them for ongoing end of life care either closer to home or to the paediatric hospice. This work can be both challenging and confronting, requiring significant staff resilience however it can also be intensely rewarding.
Support and care of families is a core tenet of paediatric end of life care. Reflecting on the differences in bereavement services available to families following a paediatric death across the state; CHQRS has partnered with Children’s Health Queensland Bereavement Service to extend specialised paediatric bereavement support to all families who experience childhood death in Queensland into the future and not just those known to Queensland Children’s Hospital.
Biographies:
Deb is a Paediatric Emergency Physician and an advanced trainee in Paediatric Intensive Care Medicine. She is currently undertaking a fellowship in paediatric retrieval medicine with Children’s Health Queensland Retrieval Service.