Lëtz Make it Happen: Redefining Pediatric Healthcare Experiences in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg

We in Luxembourg have an opportunity to fulfill our obligations to evidenced-based child friendly healthcare standards and further integrate rights-based pediatric best-practices into
our hospitals by learning from existing models in neighboring European countries and
globally, such as the child life specialist profession, and to participate with other expert
networking groups and conferences where the Grand Duchy is not yet represented.
Unfortunately, Luxembourg lags behind many of its global counterparts, despite being
signatory to the UN Rights of the Child, Council of Europe Guidelines on Child Friendly
Healthcare, JCI Guidelines, etc. Understanding that creating alignment and synergy between
interventions, organizations and individuals is crucial to effective child and family-centered
healthcare, we forged passion with expertise to form the Luxembourg Association for
Children in Hospital (LACH) non-profit organization in order to embed children’s rights into
the healthcare system through collaboration between the community, academia, and
government. LACH aims to serve as a support for clinics treating children in order to enhance
their ability to implement optimal child-friendly care by providing resources including but
not limited to: clinician child-friendly healthcare and non-pharmacological pain management
training, funding child life specialists, increasing access to play and child-friendly
environments, and fostering research and collaboration on children's rights in healthcare. Our
contribution to the PREPARE symposium discusses the current state of child-friendly
healthcare in Luxembourg from clinical, parental, academic, and multidisciplinary
perspectives. Furthermore, we share our ambitious short and long term goals for redefining
pediatric healthcare experiences in our country both in terms of challenges and opportunities.