Aug. 22 event celebrates milestone in U-M children’s, women’s hospitals building project

ANN ARBOR, MI – At 300 feet, it is the tallest free-standing crane in North America.

And atop the first of two cranes erected to help construct the new $523 million University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Women’s Hospital, there flies a flag designed by 2-year-old Mott patient Paige Doutre. The second crane will be in place by the end of the year.

To celebrate the latest milestone in the children’s and women’s hospitals building project, Paige, along with other young patients and their families, will take part in a special event at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 22 at Mott.

At the event, patients will construct their own cranes using Legos, and decorate construction hats with Mott Child & Family Life staff. U-M Health System employees on the children’s hospital and women’s hospital building project committee will be on-hand at the event, as well as members of Barton Malow Company, the general contractor for the new facility – many of whom helped to select the winning design for the flag.

The event will be held on the top floor of Mott, to give patients and families a good view of Paige’s flag and the giant hole in the ground that now marks the site for the new 1.1 million square-foot facility. Ground was officially broken for the children’s hospital and women’s hospital in October 2006; it is set to open in 2011.

For Paige and her parents Teara and George Doutre of Garden City, creating a design for the flag was a family affair. Both parents wanted Paige to leave her personal mark on the flag, so they came up with the idea of having Paige cover the flag with her maize and blue paint-covered hand prints. The family then wrote across the flag: C.S. Mott: Full of Helping Hands.

“We had a lot of fun designing the flag, and were really excited to hear that she won,” says Teara Doutre. “Mott is a great hospital, and it’s really exciting to know that Paige is now a part of this milestone for the new hospital.”

Since Paige has Pearson’s syndrome – a rare disorder caused by a loss of large pieces of DNA from tiny structures in the substance of cells called mitochondria – she makes frequent inpatient and outpatient visits to Mott. But her parents say that Child and Family Life activities, including making the flag, take their minds off Paige’s care and allow them to have fun with other patients and families.

Paige was one of seven Mott patients who designed a flag. Another patient flag design contest will be held prior to the second crane being erected at the end of the year.

Once complete, the facility will provide a new and larger home for specialty services not offered anywhere else in Michigan for newborns, children and pregnant women, such as the pediatric liver transplant program, the Level I Pediatric Trauma Program, the Pediatric and Adolescent Home Ventilator Program, the Craniofacial Anomalies Program, high-risk pregnancy services and specialty gynecological services.

Plans for the new children’s and women’s facility include16 pediatric operating rooms, four pediatric surgical procedure rooms, four Caesarean section suites, and 264 private inpatient beds upon opening, including 50 single room maternity care beds, with capacity for an additional 84 beds in the future.

Already, the U-M Health System has raised more than $50 million of its $75 million goal for the new C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Women’s Hospital building project.

To learn more about fund-raising campaign and building project, visit www.mottchildrenshospital.org.


Written by Krista Hopson