HOSPITALS COPE WITH SICK CHILDREN

Toys, coloring books and even video tapes are standard equipment in emergency rooms these days as hospitals try to put sick children at ease.

At Southeast Missouri Hospital, a former smoking lounge has been turned into a pediatric waiting room for sick children, their siblings and parents.

The room is called Hoppy's Pediatric Pad, a reference to a green frog that has been the hospital's pediatric mascot for several years. The frog is pictured on a swing on a wallpapered wall that also contains idyllic blue clouds amid a white sky above a colorful landscape of houses, cars and cows.

Little Tikes toys, including a playhouse, fill up one side of the room. Across the way sits a large aquarium well stocked with fish. The room also has a rocking chair and little tables to color on.

At St. Francis Medical Center, sick children are often dressed in soft flannelette examining gowns featuring little elephant and teddy bear designs. The hospital's emergency room also has a supply of blanket sleepers in its pediatric examining room along with a TV and VCR and an assortment of children's videos. Norman Rockwell prints hang on the walls.

Both Southeast and St. Francis give coloring books to the children that explain what goes on in a hospital.

St. Francis even has child-size nurses' and doctors' caps on hand.

"You do whatever you can to make them comfortable and feel better," said Mary Spell, director of public relations at St. Francis.

The pediatric pad at Southeast Hospital was created about three months ago "to make a visit to the emergency room less inconvenient at least and more pleasant at best" for young children, said Dr. Michael Kolda, director of the hospital's emergency medical services.

Kolda said the room isn't just for sick children waiting to be seen by the emergency room doctors; it also serves to help pass the time of children who are visiting the hospital.

In addition to the waiting room, there is a pediatric examining room outfitted with everything from toys to a rocking chair.

A new clinical services building for the hospital is under construction and will provide, among other things, for a much larger emergency services area, including a pediatric section, Kolda said.

About a third of all the emergency room cases at the two hospitals involve children. Southeast Hospital treats about 600 to 700 children in its emergency room each month and St. Francis sees about 500 children a month.

"Probably most of what we see are soft tissue injuries -- cuts, bumps and bruises," said Linda Brown, director of emergency services at St. Francis.

Brown said the emergency room staff also sees a lot of "upper respiratory stuff."

Both hospitals often see sick children in the emergency rooms at night. "Parents are trying to get through until the next day and it's 2 in the morning and they can't get the fever down," said Brown.

It's particularly traumatic for first-time parents, she said. "There are a lot of sleepless nights."

Parents shouldn't feel bad about bringing their child into the emergency room for fear that the medical problem might prove to be a minor one, she said.

At Southeast the pediatric pad is a busy place. "We see a tremendous amount of pediatric patients," said Kolda. "Since we deliver most of the babies in the area, we end up seeing a lot of the babies when they are sick."

Although pediatric patients include those through age 16, Kolda said a large number of them are toddlers and preschoolers.

"Most of the cases are not medical emergencies in terms of them being life or health threatening," he said. "The vast majority are fever and ear infections."

There are also numerous trauma cases involving such things as broken arms or cuts. "Toddlers tend to fall and hit their chins or foreheads," said Kolda.

Parents often have difficulty telling just how sick their child is. "It is oftentimes hard to get into the doctor's office," he said. In addition, many people don't have a family doctor; they depend on the emergency room for their medical care, said Kolda.

Brown estimated that about one-fourth of the children seen in the emergency room at St. Francis don't have a physician. Both hospitals refer patients who don't have a doctor to physicians for follow-up care.

St. Francis offers "Convenient Care," where both adults and children with minor medical problems are treated within an hour or the $35 base fee is waived. The system is in place during afternoon and evening hours.

Brown said Convenient Care offers a good way to get children with minor medical problems such as ear infections in and out of the emergency room in short order.

Coloring books and toys aside, how emergency room staff act toward the children has a lot to do with the comfort level of both parents and children, said Brown.

"It does make a difference," she said.