boystownhospital.org wrote:Girls and Boys Town broke ground on Thursday, March 31, to build a 50,000-square-foot specialized healthcare facility for children with disabilities. Located in the world-famous Village of Boys Town, Neb., the new Boys Town National Research Hospital West will include a short-stay surgical hospital, radiology center, and an outpatient medical facility.
The new facility will house the National Treatment Center for Abused and Neglected Children with Disabilities. This center will offer medical, surgical and behavioral health services that address both a child’s physical disabilities and the behavioral consequences from prior injuries. It will be designed to accommodate the physical, educational and emotional needs of these youngsters.
Dr. Patrick Brookhouser, Director of Health Care for Girls and Boys Town, said, “This new facility will enable the Hospital staff to broaden their range of care and treatment for childhood disabilities, encompassing potentially crippling disabilities and deformities. A significant percentage of these have resulted from trauma, including physical abuse sustained by these children earlier in life.”
“The Girls and Boys Town National Board of Trustees is very proud of this much-needed facility,” said Board Chairman John J. Gillin, of Atlanta, Georgia. “It will greatly enhance Girls and Boys Town’s mission of helping more children across the United States.”
Dr. Brookhouser also announced the recruitment of a nationally renowned pediatrician, Dr. Thomas Tonniges, a native Nebraskan, as Director of the newly formed Boys Town Institute for Child Health Improvement. He is currently Associate Executive Director in charge of International and Interprofessional Activities for the Chicago-based 60,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics. The goal of the Institute, also located in Boys Town National Research Hospital West, is to develop and disseminate better models of comprehensive care for children with special physical and behavioral healthcare needs.
“Children with special health needs constitute about 13 percent of the U.S. pediatric and adolescent population but the services they require consume nearly 60 percent of all expenditures for child healthcare in this country,” according to Dr. Brookhouser. “The new Institute for Child Health Improvement will develop more cost-effective strategies for primary healthcare providers to use in caring for this segment of the population.”
“In a sense, the Center and the Institute are the culmination of a vision of Monsignor Nicholas Wegner, Girls and Boys Town’s second Executive Director, to establish a facility on the Girls and Boys Town Home Campus to help children with disabilities,” said Father Val Peter, Girls and Boys Town’s Executive Director.
“In 1967, Monsignor Wegner made front-page news breaking ground on the former Girls and Boys Town property north of Dodge Street for a facility to care for children with handicaps,” said Father Peter. “In Monsignor Wegner’s remarks, he said the new facility was for ‘homeless boys who did not have the capacity to learn regular academic subjects. These boys should, and must, be given special instruction to enable them to earn a livelihood and live a useful life.’”
At the event, Vice President Hubert Humphrey turned over the first spade full of dirt, and his wife, Muriel, gave the groundbreaking address. The project was put on hold when its newly appointed director, a Christian Brother, was killed in an auto accident and his Order was unable to provide replacement staff.
“Monsignor Wegner’s vision of helping handicapped children then found new expression in 1972,” Father Peter said, “when he announced what was then called the Boys Town National Institute for Communication Disorders in Children. To serve as the Institute’s founding director, Dr. Brookhouser was recruited from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.”
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