Pediatric Intensive Care Unit

Sindi Lee, a mother of four children, knows all too well what it’s like to almost lose a child. Twice in her life, two of her four children have faced life-threatening emergencies and needed critical emergency care.

Twins Ben and Matthew LeBlanc were born prematurely, at 32 weeks, in 2012 and were immediately admitted to the IWK’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Ben did very well and was discharged after five weeks.

In September, 2016, then six-year old Cooper Thornton was diagnosed with a brain tumour at his local hospital in Fredericton, NB. Two days later his family travelled from their home to the IWK where Cooper was admitted.

In March 2017, Jayda - an athletic and active then eleven-year-old - became ill with a fever and started vomiting. The next day when she began wheezing, Jayda’s parents, Lisa and Brent, rushed her to the IWK emergency department.

In December 2016, then 10-month-old Violet McInnis was diagnosed with an extremely rare cancer—infant acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Instead of being at home with family, Violet spent her very first holiday season critically ill at the IWK Health Centre.