Families of hospitalized kids can stay at Ronald McDonald site at Park Ridge hospital

Families looking for respite while their child is hospitalized at Advocate Children’s Hospital, located within the Advocate Lutheran General Hospital campus in Park Ridge, will have something that looks a little like home thanks to philanthropic efforts.

On Oct. 25, the children’s hospital hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new Ronald McDonald Family Room. The Family Room is 4,000 square feet and has four private bedrooms, a dining room, lounge, kitchen, work-from-home space and laundry room. It provides families of hospitalized babies and children with free lodging and support.

The Family Room, which is different from a standalone Ronald McDonald House located near a hospital, is next to the neonatal intensive care unit and the oncology infusion center. Holly Buckendahl, CEO of the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana, emphasized the facility doesn’t charge families.

“We believe that when a child is sick, a family is sick,” said Buckendahl, adding that research has shown that children get better when they have their family nearby. There are six Ronald McDonald Houses and four Family Rooms throughout the Chicago area, according to the charity’s website.

Mike Farrell, Advocate Children’s Hospital’s president, said the neonatal intensive care unit has 54 beds and on average a child will spend around 25 days there. The hospital also has 90 beds for the intensive care unit, where children spend seven to 15 days on average.

The bedrooms in the Family Room are private for each family and have an en suite bathroom. Families can stay there for up to four nights and check out so that the room can be refreshed and available to another family. Depending on availability, families can ask for subsequent stays, according to Ronald McDonald House Charities of Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana spokesperson Ruth Anne Renaud.

Renaud said the charity gave $500,000 of the $2.4 million needed to convert office space within the children’s hospital into the Family Room. The upkeep cost for the Family Room is $180,000 a year and will be taken care of by the charity, said Buckendahl, which does fundraising through yearly charity galas.

Members of the Family Advisory Council, made up of volunteers who had children stay at the hospital in the recent past, were able to give feedback on what the Family Room should have. Farrell said the conversations designers had with the council were based on experiences the families had when their children were sick and what would be most helpful for them.

Rachel Bussert, who is on the council, said the Family Room is an amazing and welcoming place for families. “You can be a two-minute walk away from your kid’s bedside and still be able to have a cup of coffee, or have a snack, or do some laundry,” she said. “Where else could you do that if your kid was sick and in the hospital, other than in this space?”

Bussert knows exactly what it’s like to need to be close to her hospitalized child while being far from home. Three years ago, her younger son Silas was born experiencing respiratory and cardiac distress at Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington. He had to be transferred to Advocate Children’s Hospital, where he could receive a higher level of care.

Bussert, who lives an hour from the hospital, said she reached out for help and got recommendations to stay at a Ronald McDonald house because they are so well known within the pediatric community. Three years ago, “it was still a dream, not a reality,” said Bussert.

Silas was discharged after spending six weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit. Bussert said her son is now a “rambunctious, silly and smart three-and-a-half-year-old who’s thriving in all he does.”

Bussert said the experience of living with other families who are also going through a crisis with their child’s health can be cathartic. “Being able to have that connection with someone who’s there with you is so powerful,” she said.

“Your family or your friends, who mean well, don’t really understand what it’s like to be going through having a child in the hospital,” she added.

The Family Room is expected to be ready for families by mid-November, said Farrell. The hospital also opened up a kosher kitchen in the past weeks after hearing feedback from families who keep kosher, said Farrell.