Pediatric Hospice and Palliative Care
A family may feel like life has been turned upside down when a child is facing a serious illness. Families often struggle with feelings of guilt, anger, powerlessness, frustration, and grief during times of illness, uncertainty, transition, and loss. When serious medical conditions shorten the expected lifespan of children, it’s important to help children and their families have the best quality of life possible.
Pediatric palliative care is a vital service that supports children facing complex and life-threatening illnesses, as well as their families. St. Louis Children’s Hospital provides compassionate, coordinated, and comprehensive care that focuses on quality of life, symptom management, and emotional support.
Our Approach
The Pediatric Advanced Care Team (PACT) and Wings programs at St. Louis Children’s Hospital are the gold standard in pediatric palliative and hospice care. By prioritizing comfort, dignity, and individualized support, they empower families to focus on living fully in the face of profound medical challenges. The two programs’ collaborative model ensures families are never alone.
PACT offers individualized, holistic support to children and families navigating the challenges of chronic or terminal illness. This team aligns care plans with each family’s goals and values. They deliver medical, emotional, and spiritual support throughout every stage of illness—from diagnosis through recovery, or in some cases, end-of-life care. They work closely with BJC Health’s Wings Pediatric Hospice Program, a home-based program serving children and families while they cope with acute, chronic, or terminal illness.
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Wings Program
Wings is the only program of its kind in the region. They provide end-of-life care in the comfort of a child’s home. Wings transitions children from hospital to home care, providing symptom and pain management while continuing prescribed treatments. Services include emotional, psychosocial, and spiritual support, and bereavement care while families have continuous access to registered nurses and pediatric specialists.
The path forward
The compassionate, skilled teams of PACT and Wings rely on the generosity of donors to bring comfort and peace to hundreds of children and families each year. Your donation will provide kids and their families with programs that make an enormous difference in the quality of care and support they receive at each step on their journey.