"Our son’s transfer of care to CAHS"

Recently our family returned to live in Perth, after having resided in Central Queensland for almost 6yrs. Our son has been living with a chronic illness called Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) since he was 16mo old. He has struggled with chronic pain, stiffness with movement, fluctuating disability & anxiety/mental health issues during his journey of managing his illness. He has experienced 11 episodes of General Anaesthetic for multiple joint injections into many of his joints to keep him from increasing disability. 

When we moved from CAHS services a few years ago to Qld it was really hard, especially being isolated in a regional health service. Many fantastic improvements occurred during our son’s time within the Rheumatology department in Qld Health, including the establishment of JAFA (Juvenile Arthritis Foundation Australia) to raise community & health provider awareness of Juvenile Arthritis. 

We were so pleased with the communication & referral processes between Children’s Health Qld Rheumatology team & CAHS Perth Children’s Hospital Rheumatology team. We were seen promptly once settled into Perth & felt heard by our Rheumatologist who took a thorough history & referred to Allied Health services promptly. We had issues with getting the special immunosuppressant injections our son needs because of having an interstate script. But the PCH Pharmacy Dept were fantastic & went above & beyond to help our son’s medication to become available to him the very day we met our new Rheumatology team. The Pathwest team were kind & engaging & made our son feel comfortable & brave with yet another blood test.

We were so grateful to the multidisciplinary PCH team for making our son’s transition to CAHS in Perth so smooth.