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Here’s your grapefruit question: how important is this to our entire community? For 15 years, we’ve been talking about expanding beds for children here. Building a newChildren’s Hospital not only symbolizes our community’s commitment to children, for generations to come, but will also help us provide better care to the entire community. 1 The new Golisano Children’s Hospital, then, will offer significant improvements in care that will benefit not only children, but also families. Yes.We’re doubling our emergency department, we’re expanding our beds for pediatric oncology and intensive care — 30 additional beds for children — plus each room is now private, with a couch that opens to a double bed, for parents who want to stay 24-7, and there are many. 2 3 Tell us about our scope of services for kids — anything we won’t have? The only two major services we are not staffing at Golisano Children’s Hospital are neurosurgery and cardiac surgery. We simply do not have the population numbers to support these specialties, in staffing, because we wouldn’t have the numbers of cases needed to keep those surgeons on the very top of their game. Maybe this is an obvious question, but what’s your biggest challenge — money or media? Of course, funding such a large endeavor is the primary challenge. Even with the help of Thomas Golisano and many other major contributors, getting to a number as big as $242 million isn’t easy. Now, we need the help of every parent, grandparent and others who love kids in our service area, to get us to the finish line — our fundraising goal is $100 million and we’re at $82 million, so it’s certainly within reach. We’re asking the community to help get us “to the finish line” so that we can provide the highest level of care to the children of Southwest Florida. It’s easy to contribute, too; just go to www.FinishLineForKids.org. 4 5 So, think ahead three years from now — and the doors open for the first time. What are you doing? It’s kind of overwhelming to think about it, but when Golisano Children’s Hospital provides the highest level of quality care to children in the new patient and family centered environment — age appropriate care — I’ll feel that we’ve created a health care destination designed by children and families, for children and families that will meet 95% of their medical needs. I will probably be crying tears of joy, and feeling very proud to be a part of this community’s commitment to the children of Southwest Florida.
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