Children’s Egleston hospital has closed. New Blank hospital is open; patients en route

Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta built a new hospital, and Sunday is moving day. The date was settled and extensive plans made before Hurricane Helene appeared.

Ambulances will ferry hundreds of patients one-by-one to the new location about 5 miles away until the old hospital is empty.

Routes and fallback routes have been mapped for miles around and between Emory University’s main campus bordering north Decatur and the new Arthur M. Blank Hospital on the corner of North Druid Hills Road and I-85.

Hospital leaders are urgently asking people to avoid this area, which includes a large swath stretching from the Emory University and Toco Hill areas to the new hospital. This includes Clairmont, Lavista and North Druid Hills roads.

While there are no plans to block off streets, local police and Georgia State patrol will be on hand along the route to help limit unnecessary vehicles.

The train of ambulances is scheduled to start at 7 a.m. and keep going for 12 straight hours, until every patient is gone from Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston.

The patients include the most frail, from those in the ICU and the emergency room to those in regular medical beds and chemotherapy patients. The smoother traffic is for them, the better.

For families who realize Sunday that they need to go to the hospital, patients should go to Egleston before 7 a.m., or the new Arthur M. Blank Hospital after 7 a.m. The new hospital’s address is 2220 North Druid Hills Road NE in Atlanta.

Children’s other two hospital campuses, Scottish Rite and Hughes Spalding, will remain open as usual.