COLUMBIA, S.C. — Prisma Health celebrated the opening of South Carolina's first inpatient pediatric rehabilitation unit with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Before this new unit in Columbia, the closest centers offering such specialized care were in Atlanta and Charlotte, making it difficult for children to receive necessary treatment.
“To see what Naomi had to have intensive pediatric therapy but she had it at Levine Children's Hospital in Charlotte,” said Chris Johnson.
Johnson's daughter, Naomi, experienced a near-drowning incident over a decade ago, resulting in a traumatic brain injury.
“My wife had to stay with Naomi at Levine Children's Hospital and I had to come home to take care of our other kids. So I would go up there sometimes two or three times a week and on the weekends. It was just tough,” recalled Johnson.
The Johnsons managed, but Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine Director Colleen Wunderlich at Prisma Health said not all families are as fortunate.
“Up to 50 percent of our South Carolina teens and children did not have access to these much-needed services because overwhelmingly there were no beds to be had out of state, or families could not travel because they had to work, take care of other children, or maybe they didn't have reliable transportation to get to Charlotte,” Dr. Wunderlich explained.
The new rehabilitation center at Prisma Health Children's Hospital will treat children who have experienced traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries, as well as other life-altering incidents.
“The unit will include fully private rooms with overhead patient lifts on both sides of the beds that go directly into fully accessible bathrooms. We have a state-of-the-art gym specially designed for children and adolescents. There is a Snoezelen multi-sensory room to help calm and stimulate our traumatic brain injury patients, and we also have a hallway walking system that is the final frontier to independent walking,” Dr. Wunderlich listed.
The inpatient rehabilitation unit took roughly 11 years to develop. According to Dr. Caughman Taylor, senior medical director of Prisma Health Children's Hospital–Midlands, donors, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the South Carolina Children's Collaborative made it financially possible.
“We have something called the Children's Hospital Infrastructure Fund that occurred about 2-3 years ago where the legislature funded all of our state hospitals through our Children's Hospital Collaborative. The Children's Hospital Collaborative allocated 10 percent of that funding for a one-time support of our unit,” Dr. Taylor said.
Now, children in and around the state can receive treatment closer to home.
“It's really special for a lot of kids like me,” Naomi said, standing next to her father with a smile.
The new inpatient pediatric rehabilitation unit, located on the fifth floor of Prisma Health Children's Hospital, will open this Monday, June 3.