The Nicklaus Children’s Hospital at St. Mary’s Medical Center Dedicated

A new page in South Florida pediatric care has been written in West Palm Beach with the dedication of the Nicklaus Children’s Hospital at St. Mary’s Medical Center. Its authors, Jack Nicklaus and his wife Barbara, were on hand to cut the ribbon and formally open the $6 million, four-story, 45,000-square-foot facility on the St. Mary’s Medical Center campus.

(l-r) Jack & Barbara Nicklaus, Bret Baynham, Bishop Gerald Barbarito, Don Steigman, Senior Vice President Tenet South Florida, and Fred Millsaps cut the ribbon at the dedication of the Nicklaus Children’s Hospital.

Joining the Nicklauses for the celebration were Don S. Steigman, senior vice president of Tenet South Florida; St. Mary’s COO Jeff Rosenberg; hospital CNO Sharon Hayes; and Bishop Gerald Barbarito of the Diocese of Palm Beach, who blessed the hospital.

Ground was broken for the Nicklaus Children’s Hospital at St. Mary’s Medical Center in June 2003. Now completed, it provides a wide array of children’s services consolidated in an 81-bed pavilion. The facility includes two general pediatric units, a 13-bed Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), a Pediatric Progressive Care Unit, relocation and renovation of the Pediatric Hematology/Oncology service and a separate entrance and separate Admissions Department exclusively for children’s services. Future plans include the relocation and expansion of the hospital’s current Pediatric Emergency Department to the Nicklaus Children’s Hospital.

“This beautiful facility was developed with children in mind,” said Barbara Nicklaus, president and chairman of the board for the Nicklaus Children’s Health Care Foundation. “Not only is it friendly and inviting, its doctors and staff are committed to delivering the best medical care available to pediatric patients and their families in a five-county area.”