A Big Care Package for Huntington Memorial

Adding 220,000 square feet to a building almost 100 years old takes months of careful planning and work.

When Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena unveils its new building on Nov. 30, all the complicated equipment must be in perfect running order.

The San Gabriel Valley has been watching the construction for two years. In the early days, the building site was surrounded by a wooden fence on which muralist Kent Twitchell and Pasadena City College art students painted images of local landmarks. Doris Syne, director of programs and facilities development, oversaw the construction.

An elevated hallway with no visible means of support joins the old building to the new building. The latter has great vaulted windows, with sunlight pouring in everywhere, and a fountain in the reception lobby.

Its ground floor houses emergency services, central sterile supply and radiology.

The first floor holds the main entrance and lobby, information desk, admissions office, gift shop and the maternity ward, including neonatal and special care nurseries.

On the third floor are operating suites, recovery rooms and the surgical intensive care unit.

The original building, which has been painted and polished to look like its new sister, will house only patient beds.

Patient rooms in the new building are private; each has a window. In the intensive-care unit, windows appear in every patient area--a giant advance over a small cell with nothing to see but machines and graphs.

The hospital entrance, marked by the original wrought-iron gate newly painted black, is now on California Street. Congress Courtyard, a gracious, landscaped square built with money raised by hospital employees, lies between the buildings.

Inside, Huntington is the first hospital in the United States to have surgical suites outfitted with German-made Hannalux lights. The lights do not cast shadows--or, rather, one cannot make a shadow by standing in front of them. Kind of like Peter Pan.

The gift shop, run by Geri Hamane, will move to the new building. It will be twice as large and carry twice as many beautiful and unusual gifts.

The hospital’s dedicated corps of volunteers has recently added two branches dedicated to patients.

In emergency services, volunteers help incoming patients cope with a frightening situation. The group’s director, Betty Briggs, says the hand-picked volunteers have already made an immense change in the atmosphere of the waiting room. “I am sure they have many difficult experiences each day, but the positive results are endless,” she says.

Members of the retired physicians corps, headed by Dr. William Benefiel, call patients to check on their medication and general progress.

Three parties will celebrate the opening of the new hospital. The first, on Nov. 30, will be a $200-a-person, black-tie affair featuring tours of the building.

Tickets to the second, a cocktail buffet on Dec. 1, cost $85 a person. These parties will have Italian themes and be held in a tent set up on the parking lot off Pasadena Avenue.

The third party will be a community open house, free admission, at noon on Dec. 2.