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Kids & Family

Groundbreaking for Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Expansion

The expansion will take years to complete.

Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford broke ground Thursday on a $1.2 billion state-of-the-art addition that will increase the hospital's ability to treat more children who suffer from complex illnesses.
  
Hospital president and CEO Christopher Dawes said that the idea to expand was proposed around 2002, when the renowned facility had to start turning patients away because of lack of space.
  
"We simply didn't have the space," he said. "We had the medical expertise, but we didn't have the space."
  
The new addition will nearly double the existing hospital's square footage and add approximately 150 new patient rooms, plus more space for advanced diagnostic technologies, therapy centers and expanded support services.
  
Patient rooms will be equipped with space for both parents to stay with their child patients, whereas current rooms can only accommodate one adult.
  
President and CEO of Hewlett Packard Meg Whitman was on hand to celebrate the groundbreaking and pledge her company's financial support and technical collaboration to ensure the new facility will continue to be one of the best children's hospitals in the country.
  
Whitman said that despite caring for "the sickest of the sick," Lucile Packard Children's Hospital "consistently has better patient outcomes than any other hospital in America."
  
Former patient Miranda Ashland, a teenager who underwent a liver transplant at the hospital when she was two months old, said the rehabilitation programs and staff support lasted long after her surgery was over.
  
"They give hope to the children who just want to get better and go home," she said.
  
Before grabbing a ceremonial shovel and digging up some dirt, Regional Director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Herb Schultz said that Lucile Packard Children's Hospital will continue to receive
financial support from the federal government because it has proven to be one of the most successful facilities in the world.
  
"It's one of the best hospitals. Period. Bar none," he said.
  
The new addition is projected to take between four and five years to complete.

--Bay City News

 

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