Pediatric Palliative Care When COVID-19 Positive Adults Are Dying in a Children’s Hospital

Title

Pediatric Palliative Care When COVID-19 Positive Adults Are Dying in a Children’s Hospital

Creator

Norris S E; Strumph K; Rahmani N E

Publisher

Pediatrics

Date

2020

Subject

children's hospitals; COVID-19; pandemic; pediatric palliative care

Description

* Abbreviations: CHAM — : Children’s Hospital at Montefiore COVID-19 — : coronavirus disease In March 2020, Montefiore Health System in the Bronx, New York, received an influx of adults who were critically ill with coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The Children’s Hospital at Montefiore (CHAM), a 130-bed facility attached to an adult hospital, accommodated adult patients in the PICU, inpatient wards, and post-anesthesia care unit. CHAM pediatric faculty and housestaff were deployed to serve as primary care physicians and subspecialists for these adults (up to 84 years old), anticipating up to 100 patients. Among many challenges faced was the commitment by the pediatric faculty and staff to find a way to continue family-centered and compassionate care in the face of social distancing rules during the pandemic. Our goal was to preserve the patient’s humanity and their relationship to family and friends who were not permitted to visit. There is an ethical imperative to provide palliative care during a crisis when lives will be lost.1 As a result, we chose to rapidly expand our palliative care capabilities by training frontline medical providers and enlarging our pediatric palliative care presence to serve each adult admitted with COVID-19. Through deployment, the palliative care presence was expanded from 1 hospice and palliative care board-certified pediatrician (S.E.N) to a team that included 15 pediatricians, 2 nurse practitioners, and 8 psychologists in 3 days. Our standard … Address correspondence to Sarah E. Norris, MD, MEd, Department of Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, 3415 Bainbridge Ave, Bronx, NY 10467. E-mail: sanorri{at}montefiore.org

Rights

Article information provided for research and reference use only. PedPalASCNET does not hold any rights over the resource listed here. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).

Citation List Month

October 2020 List

Collection

Citation

Norris S E; Strumph K; Rahmani N E, “Pediatric Palliative Care When COVID-19 Positive Adults Are Dying in a Children’s Hospital,” Pediatric Palliative Care Library, accessed March 29, 2024, https://pedpalascnetlibrary.omeka.net/items/show/17232.