Our stories

“It’s OK. My mom works at CHEO. She’ll take really good care of you.”

Meet Michelle Vander Meer, Health Care Aide on Inpatient Surgery

Michelle first came to know CHEO through her older brother. Throughout his teen years, he had multiple surgeries and Michelle would come to visit him in hospital to brighten his day.

“I remember being a visitor and how kind everyone was to him and to me,” says Michelle. “It always stuck with me how the kindness of others could shine so much light during a dark time.”

Years later, in 2015, Michelle came to know CHEO in a different way...

Read more

“I knew I wanted to be the face that patients look at.” - Isabelle Moss

Meet Isabelle Moss, Specialty Technologist in MRI

Isabelle was diagnosed with a Common Variable Immunodeficiency in 2011. From that moment on, she became part of the CHEO family. Her young adult life was shaped by regular visits to CHEO’s Medical Day Unit and by a life-changing bone marrow transplant at Montreal’s Sainte-Justine hospital in 2014. 

“I started falling in love with the medical environment,” says Isabelle. “I knew I wanted to be the face that patients look at. I wanted to give them hope and put a...

Read more

CHEO gave 1st employee a sense of purpose, family says

Barry Bickerton recalls the life-altering phone call to his mom Winnifred “Winnie” May Bickerton in 1969. That phone call would lead to Winnie being hired as the first employee of the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (later changed to CHEO) as a bookkeeper.

Friends and family say she was on the ground floor working with the original CHEO Foundation president, H. Hall Popham, as they tried to raise money to build the children’s hospital. 

Winnie was the “glue” and the main channel between the hospital and donors...

Read more

Alaa found her new community at CHEO

Meet Alaa Abashar, Patient Experience Lead in the Emergency Department

“Growing up, I always knew I wanted to work with kids,” says Alaa. “I didn’t know how exactly, but I knew it was something I was meant to do.” In 2013, Alaa’s dream began to take shape. She moved from Abu Dhabi to Canada and started her bachelor’s degree in childhood and youth studies, with a minor in disability studies.

But moving to Ottawa and away from everything she knew was a culture shock for Alaa. Her first year of...

Read more

CHEO proactively tackles challenges thanks to historic funding

CHEO has taken the express lane in the past year to grow and transform thanks to historic government funding, which has helped Ottawa’s pediatric hospital shorten wait-lists, hire more staff, and capitalize on innovation to provide the best care to every child and youth.

Last July, after years of advocacy alongside the Children’s Health Coalition to right-size the pediatric health-care system, CHEO received $40.5 of the $330 million invested by the Ontario government to children’s health organizations.

The funding directly

Read more