Pablo Picasso said” The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away. “
To not know what Rebecca would have been like on her 16th birthday breaks our hearts. But to have realized that she was our gift to the world that we had to let go has given us some comfort.
Rebecca was so much more than our baby daughter we lost tragically…. She was the gift of teaching us perseverance. Our gift of love. Our gift of remembrance. Our gift of legacy. Our gift to push us out of our comfort zone to keep growing and fighting for what is right. Our gift to empower us to make sure her unnecessary death doesn’t happen to any other child. Our purpose to make sure every ER is prepared for every child comes from her. Our gift. Our heart. She inspired big changes in the world so tonight we chose to celebrate her and R Baby’s Sweet 16.
BUT “We haven’t come this far to only come this far”
We have tried to raise awareness that many ERs are not prepared for children. First off, you should know, every ER has a preparedness for children “score” from the government. You can look it up. Its out of 100…and its based off of what the experts say is needed in ERs for children including pediatric checklists, guidelines, staffing requirements, transfer protocols, and more… …ER preparedness for children is a NATIONAL issue and there are NATIONAL organizations working to also help this cause also such as EMSC, American Academy for Pediatrics, Emergency Nurses Association, American College of Emergency Physicians and more BUT we as parents need to know about pediatric ER scores so we can push for change. R Baby focuses on trying to improve the actual healthcare with funding pediatric training, supplies and equipment in ERs but it is not enough……. tonight I’m sharing important new research that the medical industry is aware of but most parents are not. This research says your child has a 30% better chance of survival if you go to an ER that has a higher pediatric ready score. This is not OK that every child doesn’t have the best possible care in any ER they go to. Enough is enough. We as parents need to demand more and better care for our children.
We hope you continue to support R Baby’s efforts as well as spreading the word about ER ..preparedness so all parents are aware. Thank you again for celebrating our 16 years of growth and hopefully continuing our mission to make sure every child gets the best possible emergency healthcare and their best chance of survival.