A Colorful Visit to the Hospital

Today I went on a tour of the new Children's Hospital, which many of you know is one block from my house. Those of us in the neighborhood have been living in a construction site for so long (about six years altogether) that there was some doubt that this day would ever come.

But they parted the "under construction" yellow tape and let residents take a self-guided tour. I've never minced words about the exterior of the facility: it is, in one word, hideous. To my mind, it looks like the builders cobbled together leftover material from old construction sites and slapped it on random parts of the building.

The new, hulking physical plant sends out an audible, low-rumbling constant drone that makes it difficult to enjoy my backyard any more. And atop this physical plant (it's about 5 stories high, above me on the hill) are lights that turn different primary colors. Combined with the constant rumbling, it's a bit much. Apparently others share my opinion, as reported in the recent P-G story.

As I said to Nut Bar, on some level you realize this is a big facility--its footprint is a city block--but you don't completely comprehend its enormity until you actually tour the building. Visitors were ushered into the first floor, where the emergency room and related services will be, then we were whisked up to the 6th floor. Visitors had a chance to tour all but the second floor, but by the time I made it down to the third floor, I was on sensory overload.

There's no doubt that this is a children's hospital; it's a bright, very colorful facility. A combination of volunteers and hospital staff acted as docents, and they enthusiastically showed you "their" portion of the tour. Everything is state of the art, from the medication delivery system to the monitors where parents can track a child's progress, be it in the ER, the OR, or the post-surgical recovery areas.

I have no doubt that this is going to be a crowning jewel not just for UPMC but for Pittsburgh as well. They've designed this hospital to be the best trauma center in the area, and the best transplant center in the world. There's no doubt that this greatly enhanced facility is going to bring people from all over for surgeries, transplants, and the like. They did an excellent job with the layout; there was a great deal of thought given to the patient and parent experience.

However, after the years of jackhammering, dust, and traffic interruptions, I can see this neighborhood changing in many tangible ways. From the sixth floor of the hospital there is a beautiful vista of Bloomfield and downtown. You get the sense that the designers deliberately chose this particular perspective to show that the hospital is part of a neighborhood. But I think that for me the traffic, noise, and constant hubbub will not offset the positive benefits. I'll give you all an update post-May 2nd, which is when "opening day" will be.