SPRINGDALE -- Thousands of Northwest Arkansas families could avoid the trip to Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock if the hospital can raise $70 million to build a 24-bed facility in Springdale.
Officials announced plans for a 225,000-square-foot facility to a crowd of 1,600 people attending the hospital's annual Color of Hope Gala at the John Q. Hammons Center in Rogers on Friday night.
By the Numbers
Figures are for the fiscal year running from July 1, 2013 to June 20, 2014
• 366,688 patient visits to Arkansas Children’s Hospital
• 18,196 Washington County patient visits
• 11,575 Benton County patient visits
• 21,000 Children treated at Lowell clinic
• 450 area children transported to Little Rock hospital via helicopter or ambulance
Source: Arkansas Children’s Hospital
"Our focus is really to keep patients and kids as close to home as possible," Dr. Jay Deshpande, Arkansas Children's Hospital chief medical officer, said Friday afternoon in Rogers. "It's easier on the patient, and parents won't have to miss a day or two of work."
The project will require a $184 million investment over the next five years and is tentatively scheduled to open in early 2018 in Springdale, said Marcy Doderer, Arkansas Children's Hospital CEO. The hospital will sit on 37 acres donated by Gary and Robin George and David and Cathy Evans and their families on the northeast corner of South 56th Street and Watkins Avenue, catty-corner from Arvest Ballpark.
The campus will have five operating rooms, 30 clinic exam rooms, an emergency department and urgent care center with 21 exam rooms, a helipad and refueling station and imaging and diagnostic services. The most critical patients will still need to be transferred to Little Rock, and the new site will not include a neonatal intensive care unit.
"Our intention is to augment the care already available here," Doderer said. "The vision is too create a destination for families that's not just for health care, but for health."
She said the Springdale site is the second step in the hospital's plan to expand pediatric health care in Arkansas. The first step was the unveiling of two new Angel One helicopters earlier this week. Doderer said hospital officials are working with a consultant to determine the best way to care for the state's rural population.
"The plan is not a cookie-cutter approach," she said. "There will be some exciting announcements in the coming months."
Gary George said the Springdale announcement was being made in front of a record gala crowd. He and his wife are co-chairmen of the gala, and Robin George serves on the hospital foundation board. Gary George and Cathy Evans are grandchildren of C.F. George, founder of George's Inc., headquartered in Springdale.
Gary George chuckled when asked if he thought the hospital will be able to raise all $70 million during the gala.
"It's going to be fun tonight, but I don't think we'll raise that tonight," he said.
The George and Evans families have personal connections that drew them to support the children's hospital.
Gary George said his son Charles went into heart failure in 1982 when he was just two weeks old and had heart surgery at the Little Rock hospital. The couple's two-year-old grandson, Hayden Swope, was treated at Arkansas Children's Hospital in 2004 after contracting an E. coli infection.
The hospital also treated Evans' daughter Erin for a heart condition 20 years ago and their grandson Benton was treated for a urology issue.
"It's not just our family who has gone through this. Almost everyone knows someone connected to Children's," Gary George said.
Eleven-year-old Emiliano Garcia-Guintero of Bentonville spent most of 2007 to 2009 in the Little Rock hospital with acute aplastic anemia, a disease in which the bone marrow does not make enough blood cells for the body. The condition is rare, with between 600 to 900 people diagnosed each year, according to the Aplastic Anemia and MDS International Foundation.
His father, Guillermo Garcia-Guintero, said the hospitalization split the family. He and his wife, Paola, also have a 14-year-old son, Sebastian.
"One week I would stay at Arkansas Children's Hospital and my wife would stay home, and the next week we would switch," he said. "It was not easy."
Emiliano is 101 percent cured, his dad said.
"That extra percent is for all he went through," he said. "The first word that comes to mind is miracle."
He still has annual checkups, and the family was able to avoid the trip to Little Rock this year and make the short drive to Lowell.
Children's Hospital opened a clinic in Lowell in 2007 in collaboration with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Those services will move to the new building when it opens. It offers 22 specialties and has about 50 physicians, many who rotate from Little Rock.
More than 21,000 children were treated at the Lowell clinic last year, and 450 children from Northwest Arkansas were transported to the Little Rock hospital by helicopter and ambulances.
Springdale Mayor Doug Sprouse said the hospital project isn't just big news for Springdale, but for the whole area. His personal connection to the hospital started a couple of years ago after his grandson, Felix, had to have heart surgery 10 days after his birth. He spent months in the hospital, and Sprouse said it was hard on the whole family.
"We made that three-hour trip a lot," he said. "Everybody has a story like that or knows someone who does."
Felix is doing well and goes to Lowell for checkups.
"The George family is very generous, and they are very patient," Sprouse said. The Georges own hundreds of acres of undeveloped property near the Arvest Ballpark, an area many leaders point to as a future economic development engine for the region.
He said widening 56th Street should be done by the end of the year. Sam's Club plans to start building a store on the southwest corner of West Sunset Avenue and South 56th Street in 2016. Northwest Arkansas Community College is planning a facility near the ballpark.
"We have a lot of momentum in that area that will see other development bust loose," Sprouse said.
Gary George said the land donation offer has been on the table for a number of years.
"This is the first vision we had for that area. We are very patient with what we want," he said. "If they need a little more land, they can have it."
NW News on 08/08/2015