Patients to move into the new University of Chicago Comer Children's Hospital on Saturday, Feb. 19

February 15, 2005

Who

After months of planning and two practice moves, University of Chicago Hospitals employees and volunteers will take on the challenge of moving pediatric patients, including children in the neonatology and pediatric intensive care units, into the brand-new University of Chicago Comer Children's Hospital.

What

Patients will be moved from their original rooms on the second and third floors of the current University of Chicago Children's Hospital via a route that goes through part of the Bernard A. Mitchell Hospital, the primary adult inpatient care facility at the University of Chicago Hospitals, to a second-floor bridge that connects Bernard A. Mitchell Hospital to Comer Children's Hospital. The patients will then be taken to their rooms on the second, fourth, fifth and sixth floors of the children's hospital.

When

Media: Please meet in the lobby of Comer Children's Hospital at 8:10 a.m. Saturday, February 19, 2005. A special parade with clowns and animal characters from Brookfield Zoo will cheer on the patients as they cross the bridge beginning at 8:30 a.m.

Media will be taken to the second-floor bridge so they can watch and photograph the first four to five patients being moved into the hospital. Media also will have the chance to interview willing families and go on an abbreviated tour of the new hospital.

Where

The new University of Chicago Comer Children's Hospital, 5721 S. Maryland Ave., Chicago.