How surprisingly cheerful pediatric hospices help sick children enjoy the last days of their short lives

THE NATIONAL POST | Online – 6 December 2013 – With her shock of dark hair and wide, searching eyes, little Stephanie DeSouza is a charmer. As the six-month-old wriggles in her parents’ arms, surrounded by brightly coloured toys and play equipment, it is almost possible to ignore the tubes threading out of her nose, one delivering oxygen on a constant basis, the other food. Born with a complex heart defect, however, Stephanie is living on borrowed time, already surviving months past her grim, terminal prognosis. The DeSouzas are thankful, at least, that those months have been spent in Toronto’s first, newly opened hospice for children, an unexpectedly cheerful place and part of a burgeoning network of such facilities across Canada…read more

An article from Media Watch, compiled and annotated by Barry R. Ashpole (Ontario, Canada). More reports can be found at IPCRC.NET