The Valley Children’s Hospital of Madera is announcing building plans for a satellite medical center near Pelandale Road in Modesto – due partly to the “Color the Skies” hot air balloon event held in Ripon as a fund raiser for the some past 10 years organized by Jessica Coleman donating the sizeable proceeds to the hospital.
Also contributing to the Children’s hospital facility was the Ripon Chamber of Commerce that took over the event for the past two years under the direction of its President Tamra Spade.
Valley Children’s representative Matt Steele met last week with Riponites Jessica Coleman and Tony Mistlin over lunch telling them the plans for building the new $25 million medical center clinic that will offer specialty care to children in the region. Steele is scheduled to speak to the Ripon Rotary at its Nov. 16 meeting at Spring Creek Country Club.
The new medical center is to be located near Costco, Lowes and Save Mart Market north of Highway 99.
One of the many Manteca area children who was cared for at the Madera hospital over the past several years was the young Bailey Rocha, daughter of Kathy Costa Rocha and her husband Randy, a Stanislaus County Sheriff’s deputy.
Bailey was four when she contracted an intense form of leukemia (ALL) and battled the disease for another four years with her family, constantly at her side in and out of Valley Children’s Hospital. Her grandparents were Joaquin and Nadean Costa of Manteca. She passed away at 8½.
The mission statement of Valley Children’s is to provide high quality comprehensive healthcare services to children, regardless of their ability to pay and to continuously improve the health and wellbeing of children.
The new Modesto pediatric care center will be the northernmost bookend for hospitals in Bakersfield and Madera to the south. Other specialty care centers are located in Merced, Fowler and Visalia.
The Pelandale site is located on six acres purchased from the Costa Limited Partnership of Modesto in a facility covering some 36,000 square feet with planned expansion potential in the future of doubling its original size. Eleven specialties to be addressed include neurology, metabolic genetics, urology, pediatric cardiology and endocrinology – less than 20 minutes away from Manteca and Ripon communities on Highway 99.
Valley Children’s in concert with Stanford Children’s Health have joined forces in building the pediatric health care system they proposed to be California’s leader in advancing the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of childhood diseases. Hospital spokesmen say that world class physicians and staff at Valley Children’s and Stanford Children’s Health facilities will deliver demonstratable and superior clinical outcomes and values and innovate new care models to excel at population management and train the nation’s leading pediatric physicians and advance a preeminent research platform for pediatrics.
“The affiliation (of the two hospitals) has the opportunity to each over 3.5 million children offering sites of care across Northern and Central California and providing access to over 1,800 primary and specialty care physicians,” Steele said.
He added that a call for additional physicians to join the Madera staff with training at Stanford in the Bay Area brought 300 applicants – 13 of the best were chosen, he said.
The stated vision of the hospital is “to provide the nation’s best healthcare for kids and to become the nation’s best children’s hospital.”
Yet to approve the annexation of the site, the Modesto City Council will consider a total 14 aces at its Tuesday night meeting – six of which involve the proposed children’s medical facility.
To contact Glenn Kahl, email gkahl@mantecabulletin.com.
