Children’s hospital to open Monday
The new facility keeps pediatric health care and jobs in the community.
BOARDMAN — Akron Children’s Hospital’s new pediatric hospital here opens for business Monday, representing a $31 million investment that the organization did not expect to make.
Named Akron Children’s Mahoning Valley Beeghly Campus, the hospital sprang from idea to reality in only about two years after the Forum Health Board of Trustees closed Tod Children’s Hospital on Youngstown’s North Side.
“We had signed an affiliation agreement with St. Elizabeth Health Center in 2005 to be Humility of Mary Health Partners’ pediatric health care provider, but we never anticipated we would be making the commitment in the Mahoning Valley we are making this year,” said William Considine, Akron Children’s Hospital’s president and chief executive officer.
He said filling the pediatric health care vacuum created by the closing of Tod, while unanticipated, is a natural move for Akron Children’s.
In addition to its affiliation with HMHP, Akron Children’s has had working relationships with Valley hospitals and physicians, and has had Valley children referred to it for decades, Considine said.
“But, what really drove us was our mission of serving all children. When Forum re-engineered, we felt a responsibility to step up in a bigger way to meet the needs of children in the Mahoning Valley,” Considine said.
“We are a mission-driven organization, and I think people will experience that. We are bringing a lot of specialty pediatric services, emergency care and inpatient care here, and we’re very excited about it,” he said.
One of those specialists is orthopedic surgeon Dr. Kerwyn Jones, a graduate of the Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, who has been with ACH for five years.
A Pittsburgh native, Jones will see patients one day a week here. Dr. Cheryl Handler-Matasar, also an orthopedic surgeon, will work full time at the Beeghly campus.
One advantage of having pediatric orthopedic surgeons available is that a lot of orthopedic surgeons who work with adults don’t want to operate on children because they don’t have the specialized training needed for children, Dr. Jones said. The community also benefits because Akron Children’s provides the expertise needed without their having to leave the area.
“The main point,” Dr. Jones said, “is that we are here to fill a need in the community and to assist the surgeons and doctors that are here, not compete with them.”
First and foremost, the opening of Akron Children’s Beeghly Campus means pediatric care at a very high level will remain in the Valley, said Robert Shroder, president and chief executive officer of HMHP, a partner with Akron Children’s in the Beeghly campus hospital.
HMHP and Akron Children’s shared equally in the $26 million paid to Forum Health for Beeghly Medical Park. Additionally, Akron Children’s has spent $11 million on construction to convert the former Women and Infants Pavilion into a hospital, and $7 million to equip and furnish it.
Shroder said Akron Children’s Beeghly campus hospital is good for the community in several ways.
Its presence means that people can stay close to home and get the best of care for their children, as opposed to traveling to Cleveland or Pittsburgh. Also, he said, keeping pediatric care here also means the jobs associated with it will stay here.
Akron Children’s has about 330 employees at its five facilities in the Youngstown area, including some 240 at the Beeghly campus, most at the hospital, said Sharon Hrina, administrative director of services for Akron Children’s Mahoning Valley.
Among those are about 100 new hires in all areas, with 20 or 30 vacancies to fill, said Hrina of Canfield.
A local physician who is very happy that Akron Children’s new Beeghly campus hospital is Dr. Elena M. Rossi, associate chair of pediatrics and head of the medical staff at the new hospital.
Dr. Rossi, of Boardman, longtime head of neonatology at St. Elizabeth’s in Youngstown, will remain head of pediatrics there.
“I don’t think there has ever been a time when I have felt as good about pediatric care in the Valley as I do now, with Akron Children’s here. Its presence makes pediatric care so much stronger,” she said.
Tod Children’s could not survive because of its parent organization, and having Akron Children’s here helps with recruiting physicians, she said.
“Akron Children’s is all about kids and children,” Dr. Rossi said.
Pediatric care will remain at St. Elizabeth’s on Belmont Avenue in Youngstown in the form of its well nursery, pediatric outpatient clinic, neonatal intensive care unit and a small inpatient unit, she said.
There are a lot of physicians in the community who have taken care of children for years, and they will continue to. Akron Children’s Beeghly Campus is about the future — the next quarter-century — and preserving pediatric care in the community, Dr. Rossi said.
“It’s a different environment. Everybody is working only for pediatrics. The staff is much more satisfied because they are doing what they want to do and what they love doing,” Dr. Rossi said.
alcorn@vindy.com