THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 13, 1994 TAG: 9408130258
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DIANE TENNANT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
Under the wide-eyed gaze of two infant success stories, Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters dedicated an eight-story expansion Friday that triples the hospital's size and its ability to provide specialized treatment to the sickest children.
``If you have never needed Children's Hospital, you are blessed. If you have, you know it's a blessing,'' Dr. Raymond D. Adelman, physician-in-chief, told a crowd of about 800.
The $72 million structure is licensed for 186 beds, nearly a third of them in the neonatal intensive care unit.
Daughtry Wright, born weighing 1 pound, 9 ounces, was introduced as a now-thriving graduate of that unit.
In the same row was 14-month-old Elizabeth Henderson, who stopped at the dedication ceremony as she was being discharged after a heart transplant in July.
All the patients and staff at King's Daughters were saluted by the keynote speaker, Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, a nationally noted pediatrician who has been called the current generation's Dr. Spock.
Brazelton, who has a practice in Boston, has written 24 books and appears in a regular television series on cable television's Lifetime channel.
``I think it's incredible,'' he said, ``what women can do when they put their mindsto it.''
The hospital was founded by The King's Daughters, a charitable organization of women who set up a service in 1896 in which a bicycle-riding nurse cared for Norfolk's poor children. The original building was completed in 1961, and The King's Daughters has remained the hospital's main supporter through the current expansion.
Brazelton directed most of his talk to the importance of involving and treating the family, not just a sick child. He praised the hospital's addition of playrooms and overnight accommodations for parents as vital to the mental and physical healing of children.
He also discussed health care reform, praising first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton as a sensitive woman and urging more preventive services.
``We've got to change our whole model of health care,'' Brazelton said. ``We are fighting a lot of very difficult lobbies in Washington to try to get anything you or I would like.''
He noted the neonatal intensive care unit's 700 admissions per year and suggested that the hospital look toward preventive prenatal care so that babies are born healthier.
Brazelton also chastised what he called ``our white, middle-class system'' and urged a more family-oriented approach to medicine that looks for overall family strengths as well as for what ails one child.
King's Daughters will begin seeing its first patients in the new facility Monday. The area's first pediatric emergency room will open Wednesday, and inpatients will begin moving in next month. ILLUSTRATION: MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/Staff
[Color photo]
BRAZELTON HIGHLIGHTS KING'S DAUGHTERS CEREMONY
Beth Duke, senior vice president of Children's Hospital of The
King's Daughters, escorts Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, a nationally known
pediatrician who practices in Boston, to Friday's dedication while a
workman puts the finishing touches to the hospital's addition.
by CNB