Sutton’s Children’s Offers Par Excellence Care
Published Jun 27, 2008
CHRISTUS Schumpert Health System has five hospitals in the area, and the 80-bed Sutton Children’s Medical Center is the newest, having opened in April 2006.
Children aren’t just little adults, and that’s the premise behind the care offered at CHRISTUS Schumpert Sutton Children’s Medical Center in Shreveport.
Known as Sutton Children’s, the hospital is the brainchild of PGA tour professional Hal Sutton, a Shreveport native who helped found the $20 million facility in memory of 7-year-old Reagan Little, who died in 2001. She was the daughter of Sutton’s agent, Gilbert Little.
“Pediatrics is a good deal different (than adult medicine),” acknowledges Dr. Joe Paine, president and CEO of CHRISTUS Schumpert Health System. “In particular, a children’s hospital in Shreveport was advantageous because there was a need for additional pediatric services.”
Sutton Children’s boasts several pediatric sub-specialists, including surgeons, a clinical pharmacist, emergency physicians, an orthopedist, a gastroenterologist, a neurologist, a nephrologist and neonatologists.
Sutton Children’s opened in May 2006, and its pediatric emergency department opened six months later. The 60,000-square-foot, five-story hospital was constructed within the walls of CHRISTUS Schumpert St. Mary Place, the flagship hospital in the system’s network.
“About 50 percent of children’s hospitals follow that configuration – a hospital within a hospital. It’s obviously economically advantageous, and you don’t duplicate services,” Paine explains.
The 80-bed Sutton Children’s includes 40 neonatal intensive care beds, 16 pediatric intensive care beds, an inpatient unit with 22 private beds, two surgery suites and a 7,000-square-foot outpatient clinic.
Emergency patients may be transported via the pediatric critical-care ambulance, helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft.
“We now have a very wide catchment area with satellite clinics in Monroe and Texarkana and a sister hospital in Alexandria, La.,” Paine adds.
Since it opened, the hospital has stayed at or near capacity, even through the summer months. In fact, Paine says the addition of another floor is already a point of discussion.
Community support for Sutton Children’s “has been very gratifying,” Paine says, adding that he hopes the community will get behind a new CHRISTUS Schumpert initiative – a new child abuse center to house the work of three child-advocacy organizations. A $400,000 campaign was launched in March 2008.
Story by Sharon H. Fitzgerald
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