PINT-SIZED PATIENTS
Fort Worth Lights Up in
Blue to Celebrate 100 Years of
Pediatric Care
A drive through Fort Worth this past March
showed the city lit up in blue – from residential
homes to the city’s tallest skyscrapers – all in
support of Cook Children’s Health Care System and
the care it offers to Cowtown’s youngest residents.
Part of a landmark celebration to mark the system’s
100-year anniversary, the blue lights honor a legacy
of hope and healing that was born in Fort Worth.
It all started in 1917 with a baby. An abandoned baby,
shivering in the cold, was carried by the physician who
found the child on his doorstep. Fort Worth’s former
postmistress, a woman named Ida Turner, came
upon the man and child and purchased a warm
wrap for the child. After some investigating, Turner
learned that no hospital in Fort Worth was prepared
to provide charity care to an abandoned child. She
resolved to change that – and the rest is history.
Just four months later, on March 21, 1918, Fort Worth's
Free Baby Hospital opened, and Ida Turner's dream
became a reality, thanks to contributions from
hundreds of community members, donated
services from countless tradesmen and scores of
Fort Worth volunteers.
Today, Cook Children’s logs more than one million
patient encounters each year from children all over
Texas and the world.
“Our promise is clear, concise and compelling,” says
Rick Merrill, president and CEO of Cook Children’s
Health Care System, to the Fort Worth Business
Press. “It is to improve the health and well-being
of every child in our region through
the prevention and treatment of illness,
disease and injury. Promise is a powerful
word that resonates with 60-year-old
grandparents and 4-year-old children as well,”
he said. “Everyone knows what a promise is.”
Today, Cook Children's Health Care System is
a nationally recognized, not-for-profit pediatric
health care organization. Based in Fort Worth,
the integrated health system has more than 60
primary and specialty care offices throughout
the region. Its service area includes surrounding
counties, with an additional referral area
encompassing nearly half the state. Luckily for
patients, Cook’s Teddy Bear Transport includes
two planes – one a twin-engine jet – a helicopter
and five ground ambulances to transfer young
patients from places as far away as Seattle,
Washington, to Fort Worth for specialty care.
Taming
cancer is
just the start
for Avery
The pediatric health system is nationally renowned
for its work in many areas. Cook Children’s maintains
one of the largest all-private neonatal intensive
care units in the country, with the capacity to care
for 106 of its most-fragile patients. The system’s
cardiovascular program has international reach,
with children coming to Fort Worth for complicated
cardiac catheterization and surgical interventions
from as far away as the Middle East, Latin America,
Europe, Japan, China and Russia.
Cook’s deep brain stimulation program treats
kids’ movement disorders, and its cancer program
includes a treatment for neuroblastoma with
Avery, Age 5
Hepatoblastoma Patient
Fort Worth lit the sky blue to
support Cook Children's
At only 2 years old, Avery was diagnosed with a rare form of liver cancer
at Children’s Health SM . She fearlessly faced 19 rounds of chemotherapy,
six surgeries and countless nights in the hospital. Today, Avery dreams of
becoming an animal doctor, taming creatures much smaller than cancer.
Every patient has a dream.
Read more at childrens.com/littledreamers
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WWW.NTC-DFW.ORG
SUMMER 2018