Trustees at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine felt it was time to have a hospital of their own. The school's leadership sensed that they had outgrown their relationship with Jackson Memorial Hospital, the public hospital for Miami-Dade County, which has trained the school's medical students for 50 years. However, to make space for the upcoming 144-bed, $460 million facility, the school plans to close a small hostel for cancer patients and families, distressing patients who sometimes travel from out of state or even out of the country, to access services at the school's Sylvester Cancer Center. The school, which says it needs the space that the lodge occupies, is slated to open the new facility in 2010.
The Winn-Dixie Hope Lodge, which includes 30 two-room suites, a common eating area and kitchens, will close in December. The American Cancer Society had owned the lodge, which opened in 1993, but the school recently purchased it. ACS execs don't know if they can afford to buy a similar building elsewhere, according to The Miami Herald. However, the ACS does plan to subsidize hotel rooms for some out-of-town patients and has rented suites within a block of the lodge to house some current lodge visitors. This doesn't do much to help immuno-compromised patients, however, who need the antiseptic procedures the lodge currently uses.
Learn more about the U of M's plans:
- read this article in The Miami Herald
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