ALEX MUNTER
CEO, Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, Ottawa Children’s Treatment Centre. Dec. 22, 2016.
“I have spent almost all of the past 10 years in the child and youth health sector, first leading the Youth Services Bureau and for the last five years as CEO at CHEO and now at the Ottawa Children’s Treatment Centre as well. These past 10 years really have given me incredible optimism about the future. It’s easy with the onslaught of bad news every day and the 24-hour news environment where we hear about everything that happens everywhere, anywhere, immediately, to get discouraged, but it’s worth remembering that in Canada 20 years from now, there are going to be 1.2 million more kids than there are today. The child and youth population is growing, and the talent and imagination and abilities of the next generation are impressive.
“For me, thinking about Canada 150 is inherently thinking about the future. I feel a lot of optimism about the future. I also feel that we need to not forget the fact that we are a country with a growing child and youth population, and that is actually a competitive advantage and a resource for us ... making sure that kids get the best possible start in life, in all domains in life, is more important than ever.
“Have you heard of Dr. Dan Offord? He was an academic, from Ottawa, who ran Christie Lake Kids camp for years and years. He went there as a child, then went off and became one of Canada’s leading researchers in child and youth health. Dr. Dan loved talking to kids. That was a big part of his research. And I remember he presented findings about 20 years ago that really stuck with me. He talked about how, for kids, life often feels like a race, and it’s our collective obligation to make sure at least that all kids start at the same starting line when the starter’s pistol goes off. For me that’s both such a powerful image and a motivating concept, and a real instruction to us as a country, as a people.
“When I talk to folks, they’re often surprised to learn that when you look at western industrialized countries and how kids are doing, Canada is distinctly middle-of-the-pack in things like infant mortality, vaccination, chronic disease rates, where we have all the resources to be top of the heap. There’s no reason that kids in Canada should be doing worse on many, many measures of health and well-being than kids in any other western country. So they could be doing better if we, as a society, were really willing to put children first, to make that a true priority. I think we do that in fits and starts, but putting kids on the path to lifelong health is one of the most important things we can do for them, and it’s one of the most important things we can do for our country.
“When you think of the healthcare system as a whole, two of every three dollars that’s spent is spent on chronic disease, and the roots of much chronic disease are in childhood. So if we can deal with issues like childhood obesity and make sure that they transition into adulthood in good health, that is probably the most significant thing we can do for the sustainability of our healthcare system overall.
“And mental illness is the other big burden of disease. Seventy per cent of all onset of mental illness comes in adolescence. And there again, we can change the entire trajectory of a young person’s life if we intervene early and effectively. We can change the future, for them and for our country.” bdeachman@postmedia.com