Dragon Children’s Centre opens its doors
A SIX-MONTH project to refurbish St George’s Children’s Clinic is complete , creating a bright and child-friendly space which will now be known as the Dragon Children’s Centre. The first clinics took place in the refurbished department on Monday 29 January.
Formerly known as the Children’s Outpatients Department, the Centre has benefited from a grant of just under £600,000 from the St George’s Charitable Foundation. Previously, the space lacked identity, was not child friendly and there was no obvious entrance. Now there’s a new, fully accessible entrance, complete with pram park, a welcoming, central reception area – shared with the neighbouring Child Development Centre – comfortable waiting areas and a revised layout of consulting rooms that makes more sense to the clinics and services provided there.
As part of this project, the Charitable Foundation has commissioned a sculpture for the exterior entrance to the Centre. This will act as a beacon or reference point for those attending the Dragon Children’s Centre and appropriately will depict a dragon. The sculpture is currently in development by sculptor Ane Christensen and is expected to be installed towards the end of March, at which point the Centre will be opened officially.
Attending an informal tea party on Monday 29 January, when the first clinics took place, Sarah Thurlbeck, Consultant Paediatrician thanked the Charitable Foundation for their generous grant. “We’re thrilled with our new space – it’s clean and bright. We’ve moved around our consulting rooms so that they all now have outside light. Feedback from patients and their parents attending this morning’s clinics has been very positive”.
This is the first in a long line of redevelopments of children’s services at St George’s. The Trust and Charitable Foundation have recently agreed a major fundraising campaign to redevelop and refurbish children’s wards and to establish the St George’s Children’s Hospital. The fundraising campaign will launch in spring 2007, with the initial aim of raising £6m.
Notes to editors
- For more information, please call Liz Woods, Charitable Communications Manager at St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, on 020 8725 4522 or e-mail liz.woods@stgeorges.nhs.uk
