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A dream takes shape as designs for Chattanooga's new children's hospital revamped, 3rd Street revealed
Erlanger hospital's "big reveal" of a new children's hospital design and revamped Third Street shows a building with windows rivaling a kaleidoscopic dream on steroids.
But there surely must be something more than steroids in the Kool-aid Erlanger executives seem to be drinking of late.
This is, after all, the same hospital that -- though in the black now -- was posting three consecutive years of multimillion-dollar deficits until the end of fiscal 2014 when it received an infusion from the federal government.
And this hospital is in the state of Tennessee which seems to be steadfastly spurning more federal dollars if those dollars come with any hint of the Affordable Care Act -- aka Obamacare.
So how in the name of crying wolf for the cost of all its charity care can Erlanger entertain the thought of an as-yet untold cost for a new children's hospital that doesn't increase the number of beds or seem to add any particular new treatments or services?
But, wowie zowie, it would be a sight to behold with its "swooping glass-faced exterior [that] emits a multicolored glow as patients control the light colors in their rooms."
The effect of that random room-light color is an "ever-changing piece of art" facing Third Street.
The "reveal's" preamble notes that children were asked what they would envision in a new hospital. The answers were child-like -- from spaceships to bright-colored wonderlands. Of course we all want to give our children those things. But we'd rather give them the best health care possible -- something Erlanger and T.C. Thompson Children's Hospital already claim to provide, without all the fantasy.
In fairness, the "reveal" also includes a large ambulatory center, a new women's hospital, neonatal intensive care unit and eventually a state-of-the-art stroke center. Again, almost no estimated cost information has been provided -- just a hint that there will be a "marathon fundraising effort."
But here's a snapshot. In October 2014, hospital officials told Times Free Press reporter Kate Belz that just the ambulatory center alone is expected to cost $30 million, with $18.5 million of that expected to come from donations. The rest (that would be $11.5 million) would come from bonds that the hospital planned to take out by December, officials said.
Yet, at the great "reveal," even that had changed.
"The [Erlanger Health System] foundation's first goal is to raise $24 million to put towards the $35 million ambulatory center," officials told the reporter on Thursday. And raising money for that ambulatory center is expected to take two years.
What part of "tone-deaf" do Erlanger leaders and board members not understand?