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The Ronald McDonald House Expands its Reach By the summer of 2019, families of sick and injured children will able to sleep, eat, shower, do laundry, use a computer and relax mere steps away from the hospital bedside of their loved one, thanks to the Ronald McDonald Family Room coming to the new Studer Family Children’s Hospital at Sacred Heart. 54 | Business Climate | nwflbusinessclimate.com
The Ronald McDonald House Charities of Northwest Florida strives to provide the best home-away-from-home and source of a respite for children and the families of children suffering a medical crisis. Since opening its doors in 1984, the Ronald McDonald House of Northwest Florida has been a lifeline of hope for families. Construction of the new fourstory children’s hospital began in June on the Sacred Heart Hospital Pensacola campus. The new children’s hospital is expected to open in 2019. In addition to the Ronald McDonald House currently on the Sacred Heart campus, the Ronald McDonald Family Room inside the new children’s hospital will feature a large, open living room and
dining room, full kitchen, shower room, laundry room, computer area, quiet room for families who receive upsetting news and need privacy for processing a diagnosis or making a phone call, and a playroom specifically for patients’ siblings. The new space will also feature three bedrooms and bathrooms to provide overnight accommodations in emergency situations when families need to be seconds away from children who are in critical condition. “Ronald McDonald House has been a vital partner of The Children’s Hospital since the first House opened in 1984,” said Henry Stovall, president of Sacred Heart Hospital Pensacola and The Studer
Family Children’s Hospital at Sacred Heart. “They provide an integral part in care for children and families.” The Studer Family Children’s Hospital at Sacred Heart is a 117-bed facility that serves as the only children’s hospital in Northwest Florida. The Children’s Hospital offers a wide range of services to meet all of a child’s medical needs, from a pediatric emergency room and neonatal intensive care unit to pediatric intensive care, cancer care, rehabilitation and a medical staff of more than 120 boardcertified physicians across 28 pediatric specialties. The Children’s Hospital provides quality, compassionate care to children, regardless of their parents’ ability to pay.