Bon Secours Richmond Health System opened their expanded, completely separate child-friendly pediatric emergency department at Bon Secours St. Mary’s Hospital in March 2013 as part of a campus renovation and expansion. Bon Secours continues to invest in St. Mary’s Pediatric Emergency Department, where more than 20,000 children are treated annually. Here are five important things to know about the department and why it is the best choice for Richmond area families looking for pediatric emergency care.
- Mary’s Pediatric Emergency Department is a 14 bed-unit located at St. Mary’s Hospital on Monument and Libbie Avenues in Richmond. The department caters directly to children and their families with a separate entrance and a separate waiting room dedicated to pediatrics for children to feel safe and less anxious about being at the hospital. The St. Mary’s Pediatric Emergency Department also provides free parking, washers and dryers, sleeping chairs for overnight visits, and even spiritual care to families.
- In the past 12 months, about 75% of children’s most recent visits to an ER took place at night or on a weekend, regardless of health insurance coverage status, according to the CDC. St. Mary’s Pediatric Emergency Department is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week to care for the children of our community.
- Children are both physically and emotionally different than adults; they face very different emergency conditions and injuries. St. Mary’s Pediatric Emergency Department is 100% staffed by board-certified pediatric emergency medicine physicians so when our local children have medical emergencies, the team at St. Mary’s provides personal, specialized care for the youngest members of our community.
- Board certification in pediatric emergency medicine demonstrates that a physician meets additional rigorous standards and has received two to three years of additional training, specifically in pediatric emergency medicine. This training has a direct impact on improving the quality of care a pediatric patient receives when they come to the St. Mary’s Pediatric Emergency Department.
- In addition to physicians, the nursing staff at St. Mary’s Pediatric Emergency Department only cares for children, 24 hours per day. These nurses love taking care of children and are passionate about what they do.
“When you bring your child to St. Mary’s, everyone that you’ll interact with here has the same goal, and that goal is really to treat your child the same way I would want my child treated when I take them to the emergency department,” said Frank Petruzella, M.D., medical director of the St. Mary’s Pediatric Emergency Department. “In addition to having a separate pediatric emergency department, our children’s services at Bon Secours are quite comprehensive, as we offer pediatric specialists and subspecialists in neurology, cleft and craniofacial care, endocrinology and diabetes, gastroenterology, pulmonary diseases, and urology, among many others.”
