Canada first to develop medical standards to keep kids from suffering pain in silence

By The Canadian Press on April 3, 2023.

OTTAWA – The Health Standards Organization has released a new set of guidelines to help hospital workers manage children’s pain – particularly for those who can’t communicate when they’re hurt.

It’s the first national standard in the world focused on pediatric pain.

Emergency physician and pediatric pain researcher Dr. Samina Ali says for a long time, doctors believed young children’s nervous systems were so underdeveloped they couldn’t feel or remember pain.

Now it’s clear their bodies not only remembers the trauma, and that pain can severely impact their development in the long term.

The new standards lay how to stay on top of pain management for young patients, including mandating incident reports when a patient experiences preventable, untreated and unmanaged pain.

Accreditation Canada and the Health Standards Organization will make the guidelines available to hospitals and health workers for free, but hope they could one day form the basis of policy and training for health-care professionals.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 3, 2023.

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