Children's hospital a ''unique healing'' place
By Edward Gately
East Valley Tribune
MESA, Ariz. (Sept. 3, 2009) -- Banner Health provided a sneak peek Thursday of Cardon Children's Medical Center, describing it as a "unique and whimsical place" that will greatly expand the current children's hospital on the Banner Desert Medical Center campus in Mesa.
The $356 million expansion is slated to open Nov. 2 and will allow the children's hospital to move from inside Banner Desert to a new, seven-story facility on the campus. The facility will allow Cardon to expand from 145 to 248 beds and will include a new, enlarged pediatric emergency room and units for pediatric rehabilitation, radiology, cancer care, intensive care and neonatal intensive care.
The new facility also includes six operating rooms, and 25 private, child-friendly preoperative and postoperative rooms.
The public will be invited to tour the new hospital from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. Oct. 4 and Oct. 11. On Nov. 2, the pediatric emergency room will open at 6 a.m., and surgeries will begin soon after.
