Children’s urgent care to go up in East Valley

Phoenix Children’s Hospital is eyeing the East Valley for its next big project, lured by a growing children’s demographic.

On Thursday, hospital officials announced plans to create a children’s ambulatory clinic and urgent care center north of U.S.60 in east Mesa. They also will expand the main facility in Phoenix.

“The East Valley is where children are today,” said Robert Meyer, president and CEO of the hospital. “We want parents and children to be able to access our services.”

Currently, there are about 308,000 children in the East Valley, but the number is projected to be more than 430,000 by 2030, said Angela Rocha, spokeswoman for Phoenix Children’s Hospital.

Plans are under way to build the $5.2 million, 30,000-square-foot-facility north of U.S.60 at Southern Avenue and Higley Road. Groundbreaking will be in early 2007 and the center is slated to open that fall.

Ambulances will transport children with nonlife threatening conditions to the center where they will be treated and released.

It will be the first of three facilities built with others planned for the west and northwest valleys.

Meyer said a hospital survey of East Valley residents showed most would drive up to 30 minutes to take their child to a specialized pediatric care facility if it was available rather than to a regular urgent care facility.

Chandler parent Ardin Tucker said she decided to take her son, 11-year-old Nathan Riech, to Phoenix Children’s Hospital last year after a golf ball hit him in the head while he was at a golf course and his right side became paralyzed.

“We came here because he’s nervous about medical treatment,” Tucker said.

The blow created bleeding on his brain in an area that controls the right side of his body, the hospital found.

Her son stayed in the hospital for about three weeks while he recovered. He said the hospital wasn’t so scary, especially after he discovered video games.

“It made such a difference to be treated at a children’s hospital,” Tucker said of her son’s experience.

The Mesa center is planned just to the north of Banner Gateway Medical Center, which is slated to open in 2007 at U.S.60 and Higley Road, said Bill Byron, assistant director of public relations for Banner Health.

Byron said the hospital also will provide emergency services to pediatric patients and stressed that the growing area is in need of all services.

Banner Desert Medical Center in Mesa also is beefing up its facilities to accommodate more children, increasing its beds available from 128 to 220. Its children’s tower should open in 2008.