News from the Department of Pediatrics

100 Years of Caring for Kids

November 8, 2010

Augusta, Ga. - The MCGHealth Children's Medical Center recently celebrated 100 Years of Caring for Kids, which began with the opening in October 1910 of The Wilhenford Children's Hospital, the South's oldest children's hospital. It closed in 1941, and children were moved to the neighboring University Hospital. In 1956, physicians at Georgia Health Sciences University cared for Augusta's children in a pediatric ward on the eighth floor of the Eugene Talmadge Memorial Hospital (now MCGHealth Medical Center). Over the next few decades, MCG's pediatric program evolved, adding new specialists, facilities and technology, and it became renowned in the fields of neonatal care and pediatric cardiology. In 1984, GHSU began working on a plan for a standalone children's hospital, and in 1993, the general assembly of Georgia approved $41 million for its construction. MCGHealth Children's Medical Center opened in 1998 just a few hundred feet from the site of the old Wilhenford Hospital. In the lobby of MCGHealth Children's Medical Center lies the stone placed at the dedication of The Wilhenford institution in 1910, marking a century of caring for kids at MCG.

The MCGHealth Children's Medical Center recently celebrated 100 Years of Caring for Kids. The Honorable Rep. Quincy Murphy of Georgia House District 120, presented a proclamation from the Governor's Office during the ceremony. Pictured here are (from left) the Honorable Otis Johnson, Mayor of Savannah; Sandra McVicker, Interim President and CEO at MCGHealth; the Honorable Deke Copenhaver, Mayor of Augusta; the Honorable Barbara Sims, Representative of House District 119; Rep. Murphy; Dr. Ricardo Azziz, President of the Georgia Health Sciences University and CEO of GHSU Health System, Inc.; and Dr. Bernard Maria, Pediatrician-in-Chief of MCGHealth Children's Medical Center.