A recently launched fundraising campaign from SickKids Foundation in which a replica 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. The ICU room is a replica created in a converted hospital boardroom and does not does not involve actual patients or impact clinical care.

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 appreciation for how they tried to save her daughter’s life. But the new marketing approach the hospital is using to raise funds is “unsettling” and feels like a “celebrity stunt,” said Lewicki Tran, who with her family launched a charitable organization in her daughter’s memory through which they raised more than $8,000 for SickKids last year.

“My husband and I, the ad that caught our attention was, there’s an image of an unmade bed. Our daughter died in a bed like that,” said Lewicki Tran.

“This is a nightmare, and I think it’s nuts that they are promoting it as an experience on Airbnb. We all know what Airbnb is for. It’s for holidays and adventures and experiences. It feels disrespectful to us.”

In an emailed statement to the Star, SickKids Foundation CEO Ted Garrard said the SickKids-Airbnb ICU replica experience was designed to create awareness of the limitations of the hospital’s current infrastructure on privacy, dignity and comfort. The campaign was created in close consultation with both hospital staff and patient families, he said.

“We acknowledge that we took an extreme approach to highlight a critical need for the hospital,” he said, noting many families have expressed appreciation of the approach that shines a light on a part of the hospital that is in “desperate” need of improvement.

“It was never our intent to hurt patient families and we are deeply committed to taking their feedback into consideration.”

What do you think?

The cost of going through the experience is set at $16,744 — reflecting the actual operating cost of one night at the hospital’s ICU four-patient room. Garrard said since launching, a small group of donors have stepped up to the challenge, increasing the hospital’s donation revenue by 27 per cent. Each renter stays in the unit for only three hours.

Airbnb Canada’s public policy manager Alexandra Dagg said the collaboration with SickKids Foundation is part of the platform’s Social Impact Experience program through which non-profits can raise funds and awareness. Airbnb waives fees in such situations to allow for 100 per cent of profit to go to the cause, she said.

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“For more than 100 years SickKids has provided state-of-the-art, transformational care for children and Airbnb is proud to play a small part in supporting the health and well-being of families in our community,” she said.

Dr. Rahul Saxena, a Toronto pediatrician, said he takes issue with the notion from the campaign videos that the current state of the hospital’s ICU isn’t ideal for the care of children. The campaign shows how the place is crowded and uncomfortable for kids, parents and the clinical staff, and the new money would go toward new infrastructure that is set to be complete by 2030.

“It seems that they are advertising a substandard clinical setting for the next 11 years,” Saxena said.

“I don’t think anyone on the ICU clinical staff would agree that their setting is not up to snuff and I think families should continue to have faith that if their child ever needs the ICU at SickKids they will be given the cutting edge, top notch care that they would have every right to expect from this world leading pediatric centre.”

He said this campaign concept should at least have targeted only large corporate donors rather than the general public.

Not all parents are against the initiative. Two years ago Andrew McFadyen’s son Isaac had just undergone a 10-hour neurosurgery when his health started to deteriorate rapidly. He stopped breathing and a “code blue” was called. As McFadyen recounts, the ventricles in his son’s brain collapsed, and he was in very bad shape. He needed to be in ICU as a team of doctors at SickKids worked tirelessly to help him recover.

“It was a long and terrifying time for our family, but we’re forever grateful for Sick Kids for their heroic actions,” McFadyen said.

While he’s thankful for the treatment his son received, McFadyen says the experience also showed him what’s lacking at this much-needed hospital. There is no privacy for patients and families. He and his wife had to alternate to be with their son, and even then, there wasn’t enough room for a parent to sleep near their sick kid. There are no windows to the outside, so patients and family members never know the difference between night and day, he said.

McFadyen is fully supportive of the campaign to raise funds to improve facilities at the hospital’s ICU, whether it’s through this Airbnb-style experience or any other means.

“We have one of the best children’s hospitals in the world but we have some of the most outdated of facilities,” he said. “I truly hope we get to a space where we can provide everything patients and families need with an updated unit. To me, this is imperative to that hospital maintaining its standing amongst the best.”

Clarification - October 4, 2019: This article was edited from a previous version to make clear that The SickKids-Airbnb is a replica created in a converted hospital boardroom. It does not involve actual patients or impact clinical care. As well, hospital CEO Ted Garrard characterized the SickKids-Airbnb ICU as ‘an experience’ in his statement, not ‘an experiment’.