The Montreal Children’s Hospital launches a new Trauma website to help newborns, children and teens be active and play safe

Chris Higgins of the Montreal Canadiens helps unveil the website which focuses on trauma prevention and treatment of injuries. www.thechildren.com/trauma

Each year at The Montreal Children’s Hospital of the McGill University Health Centre 15,000 children are treated for traumatic injuries. That’s over 41 infants, children or teenagers a day who have been injured in a multitude of ways such as snowboarding, skiing, tobogganing or playing hockey. Motor vehicle collisions often result in lifelong consequences. The MCH also sees far too many children injured by falling down stairs or off changing tables, scalding hot water, or ingesting noxious chemicals.

This is why The Montreal Children’s Hospital Trauma Programs and spokesperson Chris Higgins of The Montreal Canadians today unveiled a brand new website www.thechildren.com/trauma (www.hopitalpourenfants.com) The bilingual site is designed to provide visitors with up-to-date, timely, clear, concise, practical, trustworthy and professional information on, ideally, how to avoid being injured, but also how to treat common injuries such as burns, ankle sprains, concussions, dental trauma and others.

“In 2009 searching the web has become a common practice for many. We want to ensure the diffusion of timely credible information and share our Trauma expertise. This is why we’ve launched this new bilingual Quebec website,” says Debbie Friedman the Director of the MCH Trauma Programs. “We work hard on both fronts: providing tertiary level trauma care and injury prevention. Thanks to this website, we will have a much more efficient and effective way of reaching children, teens, parents, coaches, teachers and many of our partners in the Quebec and Canadian trauma network. The site is especially useful for geographical areas that are not easy to reach—possibly on a global scale. Community partners can then use our expertise to develop their own programs.”

“I am very proud to be associated with the Trauma Programs of the Montreal Children’s Hospital and to be part of the launch of this important website,” says Mr. Christopher Higgins. “I recently hurt my shoulder playing hockey, and I know being hurt is no fun. That is why this site www.thechildren.com/trauma is so valuable. It provides parents and teens with some straightforward, easy to understand information on how to have fun by staying active, but also by staying safe.”

The web site also features a video with Mr. Higgins offering teens some important advice on how to avoid traumatic injuries, and not play through a trauma.

The easy to navigate site is divided in to seven categories:

Treating Injuries: designed to provide general information about different types of trauma and the initial management until medical help can be obtained. This section gives parents some practical advice, but is not intended to be a substitute for proper medical care. As a provincially designated Trauma Centre, the MCH treats 15,000 children and teens in our ER each year. Over 600 of these patients sustain injuries that are serious, require hospitalization and the interventions of our trauma experts.

Injury Prevention: It covers a plethora of information on burn and fire safety, road safety, poisoning prevention, sports injuries and holiday safety. It is designed to give visitors some common sense tips on how to prevent a child from being injured. In Canada, each year, 500,00 children (10% of the population aged 18 years and under) injure themselves severely enough that they have to stop their current activity and seek medical advice.

Infant and Toddlers 0-3: This special section features an interactive virtual house and quiz that highlights some of the most common injuries that take place in and around the house. The virtual house was created in collaboration with the Fondation Lucie et André Chagnon – and its new site Naitreetgrandinr.net. Each year, the Montreal Children’s Hospital sees over 3700 children under the age of four who have sustained traumatic injuries, the majority of which are preventable.

For Teens: This section already includes a video with important sports tips from Christopher Higgins, and other topics of interest for teens such as drinking and driving, risky behavior and sports and recreational activities.

There are also sections designed for Health Professionals to provide them with up-to-date information on pediatric and adolescent trauma including some of the protocols established by The Montreal Children’s Hospital Trauma Programs. The section Clinical Research will highlight the various initiatives and collaborative work undertaken by the Programs. The About Trauma section provides information about the different programs, history accomplishments and how to refer children to our Trauma Programs.

WWW.thechildren.com/trauma (www.hopitalpourenfants.com/trauma) was made possible thanks to the generous donations made to The Montreal Children’s Hospital Foundation. The site is 100% commercial free. It will be updated regularly to make sure web users have all the latest information and research on how to prevent and treat injuries.