Cook Children’s adds ‘gold accents’ to decorative blue lights at night to support Ukraine
Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth will be adding “accents of gold” to the blue lights that adorn the hospital at night in a show of support for Ukraine, according to a news release.
The addition of the gold-colored lights, a nod to the Ukrainian flag when added to the standard blue lights, came to the medical center Wednesday night.
The decision came after news reports that Russian invaders destroyed a children’s hospital and maternity ward in Mariupol, a Ukrainian port city, according to the medical center. That is in addition to support Cook Children’s is already working to provide through the Children’s Hospital Association and the European Children’s Hospital Association.
According to the release, the Children’s Hospital Association is helping coordinate support for Ukraine’s hospitals and looking into ways to “safely transfer the most critically ill among them to other hospitals within the region and beyond, if need be.”
Rick W. Merrill, Cook Children’s president and CEO, chaired the Children’s Hospital Association’s board of trustees in 2018.
“Knowing that sick and injured children are trapped in the middle of a war zone and supplies will inevitably run low is devastating,” Merrill said in the release. “Cook Children’s will do whatever it can to support the response efforts of CHA. We are in touch with our colleagues there and will respond if and when a request is made. The ability to coordinate with health care systems all over the country and across the globe to help kids in crisis is the beauty of CHA.”
Cook Children officials also are working to identify supplies that could be sent to ECHA, CHA or other organizations for distribution to hospitals in Ukraine, the release said. They are collecting items such as masks, sanitizing wipes, medical tubing and surgical supplies.
This story was originally published March 10, 2022 at 3:38 PM.