Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 10, 1991 TAG: 9104100391
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHARLES HITE MEDICAL WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"I play games, watch TV and sleep," the 9-year-old Franklin County boy said. "It's been fine."
Except the salad. Adam can't abide carrot slices, cole slaw or the leafy-green concoctions that hospital menus impose as a must selection for lunch and dinner.
"Aw, Mom," Adam groaned as his mother asked him to choose between carrot slices and garden salad. "I don't like either."
Otherwise, Adam enjoyed being one of the first patients to stay at the new pediatrics center at Community Hospital.
Known as the Children's Medical Center of the Virginias, the new program combines the pediatric services and staffs of Community and Roanoke Memorial Hospitals. It is the first major consolidation of patient programs since the two hospitals merged nearly a year ago under the umbrella of the Carilion Health System.
"This is a very important day for Carilion," said Community Hospital President William Reid during a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday. "We feel this will be the major pediatric center in the western Virginias."
Roanoke Mayor Noel Taylor, a member of the Roanoke Memorial board of directors, said the opening of the children's center was "a significant and progressive move." It serves as an example, Taylor said, of the good that results when "we put aside our differences."
"All of us realize this was quite a struggle. It was a costly venture," Taylor added. Carilion spent more than $1 million to defend the merger after the U.S. Justice Department filed suit to stop it, claiming it violated federal antitrust laws.
The children's center features a specialized emergency room, a full-time outpatient clinic and a medical staff of four full-time physicians who will supervise medical and nursing students and residents. A six-bed intensive care unit has three times the space of the old five-bed unit at Roanoke Memorial. The last two patients to be treated on the old unit left by ambulance Tuesday morning.
Most of Tuesday's official opening centered on the new 35-bed pediatric unit.
Three patients were transferred from Roanoke Memorial, including 7-month-old Jeremy Ferris, who hasn't been out of a hospital since he was a month old.
Jeremy had a severe infection, a skin rash and was not gaining weight. Doctors at Roanoke Memorial suspected a problem with his immune system and sent him to Duke University hospital for further tests.
No definite immune problem was diagnosed, but Jeremy has had surgery to correct a problem with his esophagus. He's being fed through a stomach tube until he gets over his sensitivity to cow's milk. He weighs only 13 pounds, 13 ounces, but doctors feel he's turned the corner and could go home within a month.
"Jeremy, my man! What are you doing? How you doing, buddy?" said Sharyn Escobar, a pediatric nurse from Roanoke Memorial who examined Jeremy as he arrived in his new quarters at Community. Jeremy, lying on his back under an open oxygen tent, smiled and looked out the window, which has a great view of the Mill Mountain Star.
"The move was fine. Everything went smooth," said Thelma Bass, Jeremy's grandmother, who accompanied Jeremy on his short ambulance ride from Roanoke Memorial.
"This looks very nice," said Letitia Ferris, Jeremy's mother, as she hugged and cooed at her son while walking around his new room.
Over the weekend, the children's center began admitting patients who would have been taken to Roanoke Memorial.
Adam Shaffer was one of 20 patients in that category. He arrived Sunday night with a swollen left leg, several hours after a snake lunged at him as he strolled through the woods near his house in Ferrum.
"I go in there a lot to play," he says. After the bite, Adam ran for help. Neighbors took him to Franklin Memorial Hospital, where his mother, Kay Jarrell, works as a lab technician.
"He pointed out a picture of a timber rattler when he came to the emergency room," Jarrell says.
Adam was taken to Roanoke Memorial but was referred to the new children's center at Community when medical personnel realized he would need to be admitted.
Hospital life has been fairly comfortable, Adam says. Other than having to choose a salad selection at meal time, the major irritant has been an intravenous line in his wrist where he gets antibiotics and fluids.
He's kept busy watching television and playing Life, Sorry, chess and other board games with family and visitors. But he's glad he'll be going home soon. "I miss playing Nintendo."
by CNB