Workers from Walsh Brothers Incorporated are keeping very busy building a new tower at Children’s Hospital Boston, but the workload isn’t so fast paced that they can’t take a second or two out of their day to make some kids smile. The crew receives the names of patients whose hospital beds face their construction site and before a beam is attached to the tower’s frame they spray paint a child’s name on it, as well as an encouraging message or two.

To kids facing medical hardships seeing his or her name on the side of a building may not seem like a big deal, but the parents of these kids say it’s a little gesture that goes a long way.

Scheduled for a late 2013 completion, the new building will:

• provide the Hospital with 20 ‘short stay beds’. (i.e. 23-hour Observation beds)
• allow the Hospital to better utilize our existing DPH-licensed beds.
• allow for critical expansions of the Emergency Department.
• provide an increase in Radiology capacity, additions to Surgical areas and provision of new inpatient support spaces.
• provide as many as 34 single bed Inpatient rooms to meet future needs for specific subspecialties.

To learn more about how Children’s treats neuroblastoma, a rare type of cancer that occurs most often in infants and young children, or speak with one of our pediatric oncology experts, please contact the Dana-Farber/Children’s Hospital Cancer Center (DF/CHCC).