Walk through the doors of Schneider Children's Hospital. Ahead of you is a bright and airy lobby. Light streams in from a courtyard garden and from a skylight that looks like a giant building toy. There are comfortable couches to sit on, wonderful pictures to look at, oversized plush animals to play with. The doctors and pediatric specialists - they understand children, their bodies and their responses, which are so very different from those of grownups. And if you are admitted to the hospital, your parents won't have to leave you. They can stay with you all day and sleep near you at night. It's a warm, welcoming place with playrooms, lots of toys and games and even a schoolroom. This hospital is especially for children.
Now, as an adult, you can understand why Schneider Children's hospital is so special. As a regional medical resource, it offers sophisticated care for the most serious pediatric health problems. Schneider Children's Hospital serves physicians and hospitals in Long Island and the greater New York area that do not have these highly specialized services and advanced technology.
Children's hospitals are very different from general hospitals. Caring for children - premature babies to adolescents - requires a lot of space. At Schneider Children's Hospital, five floors encompassing 5 acres are dedicated to comprehensive inpatient and outpatient programs.
Because children must be held, fed and comforted, as well as
medically supervised, the ratio of personnel to patients is unusually
high. When a child is ill, parents and often siblings become part
of the healing process. This means that staff must be carefully
selected, specially trained and, above all, sensitive to families
and to patients often too young to speak for themselves.
