The rags-to-renaissance dream for Atlanta's safety-net children's hospital has reached a high point with the opening of a new $43 million home for the Hughes Spalding hospital.
The new downtown building offers new equipment and more space for the many inner-city children who use Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Hughes Spalding for emergencies, specialty clinics and primary care.
The four-story brick structure near Grady Memorial Hospital replaces a storied facility that served Atlanta's African-American community for half a century. But that facility was criticized over the years as outdated and poorly equipped, with tight conditions that quickly became crowded, such as during the recent rush of children with swine flu.
The turnaround is largely the work of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, which leased the center from Grady Memorial Hospital about three years ago and vowed to build a new facility. The new building opened a few weeks ago as the old one was shut down. The old building will be demolished, officials said.
"We have laid a foundation that does more than keep the facility operational, but puts it on a path for future growth that will help to improve the lives of both the children of our city and Georgia," said Julia Jones, vice president of operations at Hughes Spalding.
The new facility has an enhanced and expanded emergency room, child-friendly inpatient beds, specialty clinics to treat sickle cell and asthma, and a primary care center for children. The primary care center is especially important for needy children because they often don't have their own doctor and show up in emergency rooms for general care.
Children's Healthcare officials said all three of the system's hospitals care for the needy, but Hughes Spalding handles a high amount of charity care. A total of 97 percent of the patients are either uninsured or underinsured, hospital officials said.
In some ways, the new Hughes Spalding facility can be viewed as part of the ongoing upgrades at Grady, which has seen an influx of community dollars. Grady continues to own the real estate and absorb part of the Hughes Spalding operating loss.
Children's Healthcare drove the effort to raise the $43 million through private donations. The effort still requires an additional $5 million, hospital officials said.
Hughes Spalding opened in 1952 near Grady, which at the time was divided into segregated wards. It was built to serve middle-class African-Americans who were cared for by black physicians.
The hospital shut down in 1989 and was reopened by Grady as a children's hospital in 1991. But Grady's own financial struggles prompted talk of closing it again in 2006. The arrangement struck with Children's Healthcare -- in which Children's assumed management control over the center -- helped save the facility.
"We still see it as part of Grady's mission," said the Rev. Timothy McDonald, a leader of the patient activist group called the Grady Coalition. "I would hate to think what it would be like -- especially for children of color -- without Hughes Spalding."
When Children's Healthcare announced plans for the new facility in 2007, some health professionals raised concerns that Hughes Spalding would lose its intensive care unit and about half its patient beds.
Children's spokeswoman Jennifer Reid said the hospital had used only about half the beds at the old facility, and room exists in the new center to add beds.
Reid said the hospital shut down its ICU in 2006 and has been transferring those patients to other Children's hospitals. Dr. Lawrence Sanders Jr., the associate dean of clinical affairs at the Morehouse School of Medicine, said he believes the system is working and maintaining the safety and care of patients. Hughes Spalding is staffed by doctors from the Emory and Morehouse medical schools.
