Pediatric Patients Decorate Steel Beam at Hospital Celebration

Pediatric patients visited the construction site of the new Golisano Children’s Hospital recently to celebrate that the final structure beams will be placed in the next week. Inpatients and outpatients had the opportunity to decorate a steel beam with their signatures and/or paint-slathered hand prints, and even foot prints, leaving their own personal touches on a piece of the new Golisano Children’s Hospital construction site at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Patients decorated the beam, right outside the Wilmot Cancer Center Lobby, giving the construction workers a great view of who they are working so swiftly for.

In addition to colorful hand and foot prints, the celebration also included balloons, coloring books, construction tattoos and hard hats. Sandy Strong and Nina F. Schor, M.D., Ph.D., William H. Eilinger chair of Pediatrics at URMC and pediatrician-in-chief of Golisano Children’s Hospital, also joined in the festivities.

The new $145-million tower, located on Crittenden Boulevard and attached to the medical center and Strong Memorial Hospital, will be eight floors and approximately 245,000 square feet of space dedicated to children and their families. The new Golisano Children’s Hospital is designed around the common theme of supporting its patients – and their families. Perhaps the most exciting features of the new building are the many spaces planned for gathering, playing, resting and finding respite.

When the new hospital opens in 2015, private rooms and a greatly expanded Neonatal Intensive Care Unit will provide families with much-needed privacy and will enhance infection control efforts. The children’s hospital will not only be a place of healing, but it will also be a place to celebrate patients, families, faculty and staff.