Walkers for gravely ill infants and toddlers

My name is Tiffany Payne and I am hoping to make an adjustment to the current ban on baby walkers in Canada so that infants and toddlers with serious and/or life threatening illnesses can have access to them in hospital.

I need your help to bring this important issue to the attention of our local representatives : health minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor, MP Karen McCrimmon and MPP Jack Maclaren.

On August 17th 2016, my daughter Mélia was diagnosed with infant acute lymphoblastic leukaemia just 5 days before her first birthday. We lived at Cheo for 8 consecutive months while fighting for her life. During that time, Mélia was
learning to walk but often regressed because of the effect the chemotherapies were having on her muscles. With an IV pole in one hand and a vomit bag in the other, I was unable to hold her hands to help her walk. This led to her either crawling on the hospital floor which isn’t very clean or attempting to walk on her own and falling, injuring herself.

We are now home as Mélia is in remission and in the maintenance phase of her 2 year protocol. Since our stay at Cheo, we have been in contact with other families of gravely sick infants and toddlers that either have or are still experiencing the same struggles with walking that we did.