By LISA EISENHAUER
Young patients step into a playful setting when they walk through the front doors of the new Our Lady of the Lake Children's Hospital.
The tools and spaces for the Baton Rouge, La., hospital's serious mission of healing are housed on five floors that each have friendly animal mascots and bright color schemes that relate to the region and landscape.
Dunbar
On the first floor, the main entrance has blue swirls within the tile floors that call to mind the Mississippi River, which skirts the city. Some of the walls have bubble-like indents, just big enough for a small body to climb inside. Benches with wavelike humps line the walls, perfect for youngsters to do some make-believe surfing while they wait to see doctors. Outside are meditation gardens that include playhouses and mounds where kids on recess from their care can climb and roll off some energy.
A tiny patient is greeted by staff upon arrival at the new Our Lady of the Lake Children's Hospital in Baton Rouge, La. Patients were transferred from the hospital's former quarters in nearby Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center.
Dr. Trey Dunbar, president of Our Lady of the Lake Children's Health, said the hospital's planners "very intentionally" put its patients' needs and likes at the forefront of their designs. "I think it really helps disarm some of that anxiety that a child might feel coming into a health care setting," he said of its many kid-friendly features. "It provides a nice kind of healing environment. They're distracted from why they're here."
The hospital opened Oct. 5 just a few blocks from Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, where it had been housed for years on the third floor. The hospitals are part of the Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System, which is based in Baton Rouge. Our Lady of the Lake Children's Health is a network within FMOL composed of the flagship campus in Baton Rouge, Our Lady of Lourdes Women's and Children's Hospital in Lafayette, as well as in Monroe with St. Francis Pediatrics.
Mackenzie Scalan, 13, cradles a toy pelican, a mascot at the new children's hospital. Once settled in her room, Mackenzie drew a sketch of the sunrise outside of her window.
The Baton Rouge children's hospital has six floors, but only the first five are fully built out and operational. The top floor is shell space, open until the need to expand arises.
Dunbar said that time might come soon. In the week after the hospital's opening, surgery volume climbed about 20 percent and its emergency room count shot up 20 to 30 percent.
The $230 million project was funded in part by a $55 million private capital campaign and $20 million in state support. The private support has come from about 60,000 contributors. Dunbar sees that base of generosity and the fact that thousands of people showed up for preopening tours on one of the hottest days of the summer as indications of widespread support for the hospital.
"It just really shows you how ingrained this hospital is in the community already and it really speaks to what we should be able to do with this building as a lever to improve care moving forward," Dunbar said.
The exterior of the six-story, 93-bed Our Lady of the Lake Children's Hospital.
Photos courtesy Our Lady of the Lake Children's Hospital
Construction of the 360,000-square-foot hospital began in February 2016. The building houses more than 25 pediatric specialties and one of only two pediatric trauma centers in the state with an around-the-clock emergency room, which planners expect will treat more than 35,000 patients annually.
The hospital houses five operating rooms where over 5,000 pediatric surgeries will be performed annually, a 30-bed intensive care unit and 40 medical/surgical inpatient beds. The facility has a hematology/oncology floor — with 30 inpatient specialized beds and an outpatient clinic — that is an affiliate of St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, based in Memphis, Tenn.
With remnants of the pediatric hospital's opening celebration on
Oct. 4 scattered around her, a child found a spot to take a break and work on a coloring book. The hospital officially opened a day later.
The hospital has an extra-large room designated for children receiving end-of-life care. It was funded by philanthropy from a family who lost a child to complications of a brain tumor.
The hospital will be home to the Our Lady of the Lake pediatric residency program. And it anchors a statewide FMOL pediatric health network that includes hospital-based services at St. Francis Pediatrics and Our Lady of Lourdes Women's and Children's Hospital.
Early next year, the 93-bed Baton Rouge hospital will add an 11-bed neonatal intensive care unit.
In addition to the growth space on the sixth floor, Dunbar said the hospital was built so that two more floors could be added to expand its care and its staff of 500, if needed.
"Our goal is to improve the health and well-being of Louisiana's children and this is a huge anchor for us to be able to do that," he said.