Final steel beam added to Lexington’s new Shriners Hospital

Lexington, Ky. (WTVQ) — The Shriners Hospitals for Children Medical Center in Lexington celebrated a milestone Tuesday, when the final steel beam for the structure was laid. Crews hoisted the steel beam that was signed by patients, caregivers and Shriners onto the building. At one end of the beam there was an evergreen to represent hope and the future, according to Shriners. They say at the other end, an American flag represents our country.

The mission of the Shriners Hospital is to provide the highest quality care to children with bone and neuromuscular and neuroskeletal disorders and diseases. One person celebrating the new building is Emma McPeters, who has been treated by the hospital for most of her life and also serves as its patient ambassador. Her mother, Jessica McPeters, says her daughter is a fighter and that the hospital has provided amazing care to her. “In addition to her short stature and short limbs, she had club feet, fused knuckles, hitch-hiker thumbs and scoliosis,” says McPeters. “The cartilage in her throat was so weak she could not eat and breathe at the same time. She needed a feeding tube and oxygen for her first few weeks.”

McPeters says moving to a new building will be a change, but that she’s excited about the state-of-the-art equipment that she says will improve her daughter’s care.

Construction for the five story medical center started in March and is expected to be finished in the spring of 2017. University of Kentucky HealthCare will lease the top two floors, leaving three floors for Shriners patients.

The new building is at the Corner of Conn Terrace and Limestone Street on the UK HealthCare campus, across from Chandler Hospital