Mommy, where do children's hospitals come from?
The origins of Lucile Packard Children's Hospital
By MICHELLE L. BRANDT
Stanford’s steadfast efforts to provide pediatric care bore fruit
15 years ago when Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital opened its
doors.
Stanford’s original hospital, Lane Hospital, opened in 1895 and
had a dedicated pediatric service. The hospital, in San Francisco, was
equipped to provide acute care, but had too few beds for children with
illnesses that required long periods of rest, such as TB and rheumatic
fever.
As did many other urban hospitals, Stanford responded to its need for
long-term beds by opening a separate chronic disease facility in a rural
area. The Stanford Home for Convalescent Children officially opened in
Palo Alto in 1919, and its patients’ treatment, according to Irving
Schulman, MD, Stanford professor and chair emeritus in the Department
of Pediatrics, involved, among other things, good nutrition, fresh air
and sunshine.
After the medical school’s move to Palo Alto in 1959, children
continued receiving care at either the 44-bed pediatric unit in the main
hospital or the convalescent hospital. In 1970, the latter moved to larger
quarters on Sand Hill Road and changed its name to Children’s Hospital
at Stanford.
By the end of the century, fewer children were stricken with
the diseases the convalescent hospital was designed to treat. Because
the building lacked operating rooms and intensive care units, it was
unable to easily accommodate children with other, acute illnesses.
The chair of Stanford hospital’s board, Lucile Packard, argued
that all Stanford pediatric services should be consolidated in a new
children’s hospital located on the medical center campus. Despite
resistance from some board members, the board finally approved plans
for the so-called New Children’s Hospital in 1982.
Packard went on to play a key role in designing and planning the new
hospital, which was to be physically connected to Stanford’s adult
hospital; she and her husband, David, donated $40 million toward the
building in 1986. Although Packard reportedly didn’t wish for the
hospital to be named after her, she agreed to it shortly before her death
in 1987. Schulman became the hospital’s first chief of staff.
Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, which opened its doors in
June 1991, now has 264 beds and was recently named one of the nation’s
top 10 pediatric hospitals by U.S. News & World Report. It is well-known
for many of its programs, including the Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases;
the Children’s Heart Center, which is recognized as one of the
best in the nation; and the Center for Healthy Weight, which was the
first in California to offer pediatric weight-loss surgery.
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