The Children's Hospital at Westmead

This article is about the hospital in Sydney. For the hospital in Brighton, England, see Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital.

"New Children's Hospital" redirects here. For the planned children's hospital in Dublin, Ireland, see new children's hospital (Dublin).

The Children's Hospital at Westmead (CHW; formerly Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children) is a children's hospital in Western Sydney. The hospital was founded in 1880 as "The Sydney Hospital for Sick Children". Its name was changed to the "Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children" on 4 January 1904 when King Edward VII granted use of the appellation 'Royal' and his consort, Queen Alexandra, consented to the use of her name.

The Children's Hospital at Westmead
Sydney Children's Hospital Network
Hospital entrance
Geography
Location	Cnr Hawkesbury Rd & Hainsworth St, Westmead, New South Wales, Australia
Coordinates	33°48′06″S 150°59′31″E / 33.8017°S 150.992°E / -33.8017; 150.992
Organisation
Care system	Medicare (Australia)
Funding	Public hospital
Type	Specialist; Teaching
Affiliated university	University of Sydney
Network	NSW Health
Services
Emergency department	Yes: Pediatric Major Trauma Centre
Beds	340
Helipads
Helipad	(ICAO: YXWM)
Number Length Surface ft m 1 aluminium
History
Opened	1880
Links
Website	Official website
Lists	Hospitals in Australia

The Children's Hospital at Westmead is one of three children's hospitals in New South Wales. It is currently located on Hawkesbury Road in Westmead and is affiliated with the University of Sydney.

On 1 July 2010, the Children's Hospital at Westmead became part of the newly formed The Sydney Children's Hospitals Network (Randwick and Westmead), incorporating the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children.^[1]

History

Foundation as the Sydney Hospital for Sick Children

 

RAHC Camperdown

The hospital was opened in 1880 as the Sydney Hospital for Sick Children after Mrs. Jessie Campbell-Browne, wife of the Member for Singleton, gathered together in 1878 with a group of women to discuss the merits of establishing a children's hospital in Sydney. It soon outgrew the small building in which it was housed at Glebe Point. In 1906, it moved to a much grander building, designed by Harry Kent in Camperdown, where it stayed for 89 years, where it was known as the Camperdown Children's Hospital.^[2]

Relocation and renaming

In 1995, the hospital was relocated to its current location in Westmead to better serve the growing populations of Western Sydney. This relocation involved amalgamation with most of the paediatric services of nearby Westmead Hospital (apart from neonates) to form a new hospital with a new name, initially "The New Children's Hospital" and, more recently, "The Children's Hospital at Westmead".

The official name of the Children's Hospital at Westmead, the "Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children", is retained.

Services

The Children's Hospital at Westmead is one of the busiest Children's Hospitals in New South Wales seeing over 80,000 patients annually. In addition to the emergency department, outpatient clinics and inpatient departments receive patients by general practitioner and specialist referral.^[3]

Adolescent health

The Adolescent Medicine at The Children's Hospital at Westmead seeks to improve the health and wellbeing of young people aged 12–24. The key focus areas include developing information and resources; capacity building to increase workers' skills and confidence in adolescent health; supporting applied research; advocacy and policy development to increase leadership and action for adolescent health.^[4]

Controversies

Attitude to paediatric transgender medical care

On February 1, 2023, a team of doctors at Westmead led by Joseph Elkadi, Catherine Chudleigh, and Ann M. Maguire published a controversial article in the paediatric journal Children that purported to examine the developmental pathway and clinical outcomes of 79 transgender children who presented at the hospital's gender service.^[5] Despite a broad medical consensus of the world's largest medical associations, the authors concluded that gender-affirming healthcare is, in effect, "iatrogenic" and a "non-standard risky approach". Their conclusions were widely repeated in numerous articles in conservative or right-leaning media outlets in Australia, citing "legal and safety fears"^[6][7][8] over gender-affirming healthcare. The press coverage also attracted several thousand highly pejorative public comments about gender-diverse children and adults and their treating physicians.^{[citation needed]}

The conclusions reached in Elkadi's article presenting his Westmead study were subsequently analysed and strongly disputed by the peak body for transgender healthcare in Australia, the Australian New Zealand Professional Association for Transgender Health (AusPATH).^[9] In a response letter dated March 1, 2023, the Westmead study's authors were criticised for "significant bias" in their use of terminology and selection of supporting literature. For example, AusPATH found the Westmead article cited a preponderance of marginal literature that tended to be critical of the gender-affirming approach without any balancing consideration of the "well-described, established" body of work demonstrating the benefits of the more medically accepted treatments. AusPATH also identified a range of methodological flaws and misrepresentations of data in the Westmead study.

AusPATH holds that the Westmead team's use of "discredited literature", in particular its use of the scientifically unverified "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria" (ROGD) classification for study participants, compromises the validity of the research. The ROGD designation is not widely accepted within the field; it is not found in any diagnostic manual.^{[citation needed]} AusPATH found the 'ROGD' term use in the research was supported by citing medical lobby groups such as the National Association of Practicing Psychiatrists (NAPP). The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP), the peak body for psychiatry in Australia, does not refer to ROGD in any policy documents, while the Australian Psychological Society (APS) considers that current scientific evidence refutes the concept. The Westmead study's authors were also criticised for using "de-humanising" anti-trans language and for "pathologising" gender diversity in a discriminatory way.^[9][6][10]

Several LGBTI human rights groups^[which?] pointed out that the Westmead group's study runs counter to the NSW Health Strategy for transgender young people and questioned whether Westmead was fit to continue treating transgender children and adolescents in a non-discriminatory and therapeutically beneficial way.^{[citation needed]} In July 2023, the Health Minister for New South Wales, Ryan Park, announced the government would commission a statewide review of gender-affirming care, to be undertaken by the health policy group the Sax Institute. The review was initiated following a "string of staff resignations", which ABC News, Australia said were linked to the disputed research which they characterised as "endorsed by the hospital hierarchy".^[11]

In a 2022 incident that was associated by the media with Westmead's approach to gender medical care, Noah O'Brien, a 14-year-old transgender youth, presented to Westmead Children's Hospital with gender dysphoria, seeking care. The hospital refused gender-affirming healthcare, and Noah subsequently died by suicide. The hospital declined to comment on the matter when approached by media organisations.^[6]

Notable people

Notable doctors and board members

Some notable individuals connected to the history of the Children's Hospital are:

• Sir Lorimer Dods LVO (1900–1981), paediatrician, who founded, with assistance from Dr John Fulton and Douglas Burrows, the Children's Medical Research Foundation.^[12]
• Sir Charles Clubbe (1854–1932), was the President of the hospital's Board of Management from 1904 until 1932, can perhaps be called the father of the Children's Hospital and is sometimes also mentioned as one of the fore-fathers of Australian orthopaedic surgery. Sir Charles Clubbe has a ward named after him.
• Sir Robert Blakeley Wade (1874–1954), orthopaedic surgeon. A new building Wade House was named in his honour in 1939, with pictures of Australian fauna drawn on many walls by artist Pixie O'Harris.
• Dr Margaret Harper (1879–1964), paediatrician, who discovered the difference between coeliac disease and cystic fibrosis of the pancreas in 1930.
• Sir Norman Gregg (1892–1966), ophthalmologist, was the first person to identify German measles as a cause for congenital deformities.
• Dr Lindsay Dey CBE (1886–1973), paediatrician, was the President of the hospital's Board of Management from 1946 until 1959.
• Dr Frank Tidswell (1867–1941), microbiologist, was the Director of Pathology from 1913 until 1941.
• Dr. R. Douglas Reye (1912–1977), fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, after whom Reye's syndrome was named, worked at the hospital from 1939 until his death.
• Dr Marcel Sofer–Schreiber FRACS; MRCS; FRCS 1938; MBBS Sydney, 1931 (1910–1994), paediatric neurosurgeon, led the way in Australia in the treatment of hydrocephalus, using the Spitz–Holter shunt in the 1960s. He went on to train many doctors to carry out this procedure, thus saving the lives of countless babies, and leaving a lasting legacy. He published extensively on his specialty with papers on hydrocephalus, head injuries and spinal tumours. He was also the first surgeon to draw attention to the potentially deadly condition of subdural haematoma in infants.

Notable patients

Some notable individuals connected to the history of the Children's Hospital are:

• Francis Chan (born 1991) – the youngest liver transplant patient in Australia at three months old. He underwent two transplants three days apart as the first transplant failed until the last-minute call came in time for another transplant to save his life.^{[citation needed]}
• Sophie Delezio (born 2001) – treated at the hospital after being badly injured in a car crash at two years old. She suffered burns to 85 per cent of her body but survived and was released from hospital six months later in June 2004.^[13]

See also

• Lists of hospitals
  • List of hospitals in Australia
• Healthcare in Australia
• Sydney Children's Hospital
• Westmead Hospital

Notes

References

1. "Health Services Order 2010" (PDF). NSW Government.
2. Venables, Lisa (2014) [First published 2000]. Saving Zali. Sydney, Australia: Pan Macmillan Australia. p. 34. ISBN 978-1-74261-290-4.
3. "Department quick list". Sydney Children's Hospitals Network. 26 June 2013.
4. "Adolescent Medicine at The Children's Hospital at Westmead". Sydney Children's Hospital. Retrieved 21 September 2016.
5. Elkadi, Joseph; Chudleigh, Catherine; Maguire, Ann M.; Ambler, Geoffrey R.; Scher, Stephen; Kozlowska, Kasia (7 February 2023). "Developmental Pathway Choices of Young People Presenting to a Gender Service with Gender Distress: A Prospective Follow-Up Study". Children. 10 (2): 314. doi:10.3390/children10020314. PMC 9955757. PMID 36832443.
6. Karvelas, Patricia; Robinson, Lesley; Hildebrandt, Carla (9 July 2023). "Controversial research pulls Westmead children's hospital into centre of fight over gender care". ABC News. Retrieved 9 July 2023.; Karvelas, Patricia; Robinson, Lesley; Hildebrandt, Carla (9 July 2023). "'We did all we could': Noah was desperate for gender care. He died waiting for help". ABC News.
7. For examples in one such newspaper, The Australian, see:
   • Robinson, Natasha. "Doctor scrutiny on gender clinic reveals legal and safety fears". The Australian. Retrieved 2 March 2023.
   • Dudley, Ellie. "Doctors question trans healthcare policy research". The Australian. Retrieved 2 March 2023.
   • Robinson, Natasha. "Devastated woman 'wants to spare future mothers and babies' with consequences of gender transition". The Australian. Retrieved 2 March 2023.
   • For sources positioning the Australian newspaper as "right-leaning", see:
     • . Crikey. 26 June 2007. Archived from the original on 7 October 2018.
     • Mitchell, Chris (9 March 2006). "The Media Report". ABC Radio National. Australian Broadcasting Company. 17 January 2008 at the Wayback Machine
8. Telfer, M. M.; Tollit, M. A.; Pace, C. C.; Pang, K. C. (2020), Australian Standards of Care and Treatment Guidelines for Trans and Gender Diverse Children and Adolescents (PDF) (Version 1.3 ed.), Melbourne: The Royal Children’s Hospital; Australian Professional Association for Trans Health (AusPATH)
9. Telfar, Michelle (1 March 2023). "AusPATH response to: Elkadi; Chudleigh; Maguire; Ambler; Scher; Kozlowska (2023). 'Developmental Pathway Choices of Young People Presenting to a Gender Service with Gender Distress: A Prospective Follow-Up Study'. In Children, 10 (2): 314". Australia New Zealand Professional Association for Transgender Health (AusPATH). Retrieved 1 July 2023.
   • In response to: Elkadi, J., et al. (7 February 2023). "Developmental Pathway Choices of Young People Presenting to a Gender Service with Gender Distress: A Prospective Follow-Up Study". Children. 10 (2): 314. doi:10.3390/children10020314
10. RANZCP (August 2021), RANZCP position statement: Mental health needs of people experiencing Gender Dysphoria / Gender, retrieved 11 July 2023
11. Cornish, Ruby; Karvelas, Patricia (11 July 2023). "Review announced into delivery of gender-affirming care in NSW following Four Corners investigation". ABC News.
12. Yu, John. "Dods, Sir Lorimer Fenton (1900–1981)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. Retrieved 11 August 2012.
13. Delezio, Carolyn. "Sophie's Day of Difference". Day of Difference. Retrieved 16 August 2021.