P.E.I. needs a committee to review child deaths: Canadian Paediatric Society
The president of the Canadian Paediatric Society is calling on P.E.I. to establish a committee of professionals to review all child deaths, collect data and report any lessons learned back to the government and the public.
"We think that each province should have a collection of professionals that look at the death of every child in the province," said Dr. Michael Dickinson, the society's president.
"Because clearly whenever a child dies, it is almost always tragic and unexpected."
The Society gave P.E.I. a "poor" rating in its 2016 report for not having any formal review process. Other provinces and territories rated "fair" to "excellent."
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Dickinson said the committee should be made up of professionals from a broad range of backgrounds, such as social workers, child protection workers, pediatricians and police officers.
Bringing in different perspectives
Currently, any Island child who died unexpectedly, or under unnatural or suspicious circumstances would be investigated by the coroner, according to Dickinson. But he said the review needs to go beyond the work done by the coroner to include professionals that specialize in related areas, such as child care, that may not be part of a coroner's background.
"To have a number of different people on a committee look at these issues through different perspectives with different lenses, we think there is a big advantage to that," Dickinson said.
In a statement, the Department of Family and Human Services said the province has committed to establish a child death and serious injury review process and a domestic homicide review process — one of 65 recommendations in the Child Protection Act review report that was released in January.
The department wouldn't give specifics on where that work is at, or answer whether this review process would just be when children die in provincial care or if it would include all children who die in P.E.I.
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