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Clinic for the Whole World: a Unique Center for Pediatrics has Welcomed its First Patients

[30.10.2024]

All young patients of the Center for Pediatrics at the Medical Center - University of Freiburg have been moved to the new building. This significant event marks the end of a long and challenging journey toward a new beginning.

© Faruk Pinjo

Thanks to careful planning and effective collaboration, a unique institution for all of Europe has emerged — the Children's Clinic of the 21st Century. Construction took six years, with approximately 170 million euros invested and around 6 million euros raised in donations. In the future, it is planned to treat about 80,000 young patients annually.

"Anti-waiting areas," and other innovative solutions

The new Center for Pediatrics is tailor-made for the needs of children and adolescents as well as their parents. Among the innovations are unique solutions such as "anti-waiting areas", which provide patients and their parents with the much-needed distracting and relaxing atmosphere. in which time flies through child-friendly activities.

Prof. Dr. Tobias Feuchtinger, spokesperson for the Center for Children's and Women's Medicine and Director of the Department of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, proudly shows us around the new clinic and is genuinely pleased:

“In the outpatient area, we have implemented completely new concepts in which lively rooms are designed that meet the needs of all age groups, allowing for movement, play, but also retreat and work or even homework.

When patients and their families enter the inpatient area, the first thing they see is not the infusion stands, but an area where they can play, eat and spend time, making it possible to live a normal daily routine. Children can go to school here, eat, play and then go to the patient rooms to stay overnight.

Throughout the building, there is the possibility to step outside from indoors, in the sense of a healing environment, so that patients do not feel constrained but can also enjoy the fresh air. In the patient rooms, parents can stay overnight right next to their children or rest during the day.

These innovative solutions are designed to encourage patients and thus support healing beyond medical treatment.”

It is a center for pediatric high-performance medicine that combines all the specialist disciplines of pediatric and youth treatment. In an innovative model, the new Center for Pediatrics unites university medicine, clinical care and comprehensive emergency care under one roof.

With its pediatric and adolescent medicine, the Medical Center - University of Freiburg offers an excellent environment for the treatment of young patients with very serious and often rare diseases: researchers work here on new treatment options, and young physicians are trained according to the latest findings. The new clinic building is optimally designed for this interaction between science and patient care, thus also strengthening Freiburg's leading position in pediatric and adolescent medicine.