SickKids´ Airbnb campaign to have donors `check in´ to ICU met with criticism
(The Star Food)

A recently launched fundraising campaign from SickKids Foundation in which an ICU room is rented to donors through Airbnb has attracted criticism that it’s disrespectful to families who have needed services at the hospital.The campaign is described in the Airbnb listing as “an eye-opening stay at SickKids� that provides an immersive experience meant to draw people’s attention to the hospital’s lack of space and modern facilities. Prospective renters are warned they’ll receive “state-of-the-art� care but might have to share a room with up to six people.In a 30-second video that is part of the campaign, Raptors’ guard Fred VanVleet is seen wiping his face and looking uncomfortable in a tiny bed surrounded by machines. He says only spent three hours there and is wondering how it must be for those spending days and months in that same room. “Doctors tripping over each other and we’re running out of room, machines all tangled up. It’s just unimaginable what these people go through.�Since being launched last month, the campaign has drawn the ire of parents as well as online viewers, who describe it as “disrespectful� to those who have had real-life experiences of staying at the hospital.“Count me out. I had a child in an ICU and don’t need to relive those memories. This is voyeurism and exploitative,� tweeted someone on the video.“My life is not an Airbnb experience,� another person commented.For Krista Lewicki Tran, whose 9-year-old daughter Abbey died in May 2018 after a three-week stay in the hospital’s ICU where she received treatment for a rare blood disorder, seeing that video and the subsequent campaign material felt both “shocking� and “exploitative.�She said the medical staff at the hospital “went above and beyond� to help her family during what was a very difficult time, and she has nothing but appr ...