Petition launched to rename SickKids to something more positive

TORONTO — SickKids is renowned as one of the top children’s hospitals in the world, but a petition has been launched in an effort to change its name to something more positive.

“It just doesn’t work, this title, right?” said Robin H-C, who uses the initials of her last name, adding that she urged the hospital to take the word “sick” out of the name in an online petition.

“Children are open to suggestion.”

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H-C, who is a life coach, said she thinks it would make more sense to use words like “healing” or even “magic” as opposed to “sick.”

“If kids are off to a magical, healing hospital as opposed to SickKids, you can feel the difference,” she said.

The hospital declined an interview and emailed a statement instead.

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“SickKids has become synonymous with high-quality care for some of Canada’s — and even the world’s — most critically ill children,” wrote SickKids spokesperson Matet Nebres.

That kind of name change wouldn’t be all that unusual, because as society evolves so does language.

In the late 1800’s, around the same time as SickKids started, an institution in Orillia,Ont. opened with the name “The Asylum for Idiots and Feeble Minded.”

It later became the “Ontario Hospital School”, before settling as “Huronia Regional Centre.”

More recent times have seen a more subtle evolution; police “forces” and “departments” have become “services.”

There are also many failed moniker makeovers, like a campaign to change Victoria Day to “Victoria and First People’s Day” to honour First Nations.

Another non-starter, after some of Donald Trump’s more radical statements, City Councillor Josh Matlow wanted to ditch the name Trump from the Trump Tower.