GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Mary Free Bed is getting closer to welcoming patients at its new Joan Secchia Children's Rehabilitation Hospital in Grand Rapids.
The 67,000-square-foot building is still a few months from opening, but a tour of the facility shows how progress is coming along.
Kent Riddle, CEO of Mary Free Bed, has a personal connection to the hospital's mission. His wife was involved in a crash with a drunk driver, and Mary Free Bed played a central role in her recovery.
"She came in full coma, 100%. Yeah, had no movement or anything, and she walked out of Mary Free Bed and was released," Riddle said.
That experience has driven his commitment to the project.
"Well, Mary Free Bed gave me my wife back. So how can I give back?" Riddle said.
The hospital's design centers on a camp theme, meant to energize and inspire young patients during their recovery. A tree is the first thing visitors see when walking through the doors.
"We have a tree. So the whole idea inside the hospital is to get kids to be energized and to want to do their therapy and to want to work hard and to rehabilitate, and so we wanted to make it as comfortable for them as we could but also inspiring," Riddle said.
"The whole theme is built around the idea of lifting kids up, inspiring them to want to play, right? Play is therapy. Therapy is play for kids," Riddle said.
In addition to the tree, the facility will include a specialized therapy gym, a family resource center, and 24 private rooms.
Mary Free Bed treats more than 2,500 children every year. Between 2016 and 2023, the hospital treated more than 40,000 patients.
The new children's hospital sits directly across the street from the original Mary Free Bed hospital. The two buildings are connected by a bridge and arch.
"We call it the Arch of Hope and Freedom. So it's really — we are a destination. So kids from all over the state come here. Kids from the Midwest come here. We have kids even nationally and internationally that come here. When they see the arch, it's really, you've come to the place where you're going to heal and get better," Riddle said.
The expansion also creates more capacity for adult patients at the original facility.
"Now you have this extra bit of resource here. How has that changed the game for you? And it's really changed the game in a couple of ways. We've got more room for adults across the street, which we need because we've been just packed. Every room's been really full for years, and so we just keep adding more rooms and adding more rooms, and we become more of a destination and more of a specialty hospital," Riddle said.
The hospital is hoping to open in late fall, sometime in November.
This story was initially reported by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
