Better Pediatric Care is Our Priority

From Jason Little, CEO, Baptist Memorial Health Care

When my children are sick, making sure they get quality care is my top priority. I have made a number of trips to the Baptist emergency room with my own children. My son needed stitches in his head following an injury at Vacation Bible School. Watch out – the ER nurse told me we were her fourth Vacation Bible School injury that week!

I also rushed my niece to the Baptist ER when she swallowed a marble from a Hungry Hungry Hippo game at my home. I now include the reminder, “Please don’t eat the marbles yourself!” whenever we play. When my wife was out of town and I was supervising the children, my 5-year-old daughter decided to cut her own hair with scissors. I remember wishing our ER could sew that hair back in place just like they sewed my son’s hand following his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle audition. The hand they fixed; unfortunately, I had to face my wife alone on my daughter’s hair.

I share all of this to say that I understand parents want to feel confident knowing they are taking their child to a hospital that has the best possible resources and an experienced, responsible, compassionate staff. Baptist Memorial Health Care employs hundreds of mothers and fathers, so we thought about what they would want when planning for our new children’s hospital. The final result, which opened earlier this year, is something I am extremely proud to offer the community.

The Spence and Becky Wilson Baptist Children’s Hospital at Baptist Memorial Hospital for Women offers a wide range of children’s hospital services, including care for broken bones, fever, sprains, strains, tears, dehydration, flu, respiratory illnesses, lacerations, and more. The 17,000-square-foot emergency room has 10 bays for patient care and a 2,000-square-foot diagnostics area. Any child who comes into the ER will have 24/7 access to pediatric emergency physicians, pediatric hospitalists, and a range of other pediatric specialists, such as a pediatric general surgeon and pediatric anesthesiologist.

The community also has access to a 12-bed inpatient unit, outpatient pediatric surgery, and the Pediatric Eye Center at our children’s hospital. Our Pediatric Eye Center is the only clinic in the Mid-South offering the full continuum of eye care from diagnosis to treatment, surgery, and follow-up. Before now, patients had to travel hours to get access to specialized pediatric eye care.

Since our children’s hospital opened in January, we have already provided service to more than 4,834 patients, treating about 39 children a day. If your child is ever in need of medical attention, I hope you’ll think of visiting The Spence and Becky Wilson Children’s Hospital knowing it was created with your child’s needs in mind.

If you have any questions about our children’s hospital, leave them in the comments below or send me a tweet at @Jason_M_Little.