Studer Family Children's Hospital at Ascension Sacred Heart in Pensacola, Fla., is opening a pediatric oncology and hematology center May 10, the Pensacola News Journal reports.
The $4 million Bear Family Foundation Pediatric Oncology Center for Hope is 11,500-square-feet. It includes nine treatment rooms and family community spaces.
About 40 new pediatric oncology patients are treated at the hospital each year, and prior to the launch of the new center, they were treated on the regular pediatric floor.
"We've wanted this for a long time," Jeff Schwartz, MD, pediatric hematologist and oncologist at the children's hospital, told the news outlet. "For years, all of our patients have been on the regular pediatrics floor and so now to have really a more private space I think allows the family that privacy, also gives them I think the security of knowing that they're not around all the other kids that are sick."
The new center was funded by donations from more than 1,000 contributors, the largest of which came from the Bear Family Foundation with a $1.75 million donation.