Community Hospice & Palliative Care has opened the Dorion Family Pediatric Center, a first-of-its-kind facility in Florida, at its Mandarin campus. The 8,300-square-foot center provides a space for families with children who have complex medical conditions to receive care and support.

Pediatric Care Services

The center offers a range of services, including a therapeutic play room, a gathering area, a therapy and arts room, and a music therapy area. The facility also features a family bereavement support center and a library that looks like a castle.

Jacobo Lopez, an 18-year-old who uses hospice services, attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony and said, ‘I feel amazing. When I walked in, I wasn’t expecting it to be this beautiful.’ Lopez volunteers to help children and families who use the center’s services.

Community Hospice has had pediatric programs for decades, but the new facility brings all of its Community PedsCare services under one roof. The center’s director, Patrice Austin, said, ‘We have serviced families in the home for quite a while, but now we have created a space for them to come together.’

The facility was made possible by a $10 million fundraising campaign, and it is named after Dottie Dorion, who helped found Community Hospice in the 1970s.

Original reporting: Jacksonville Today — read the source article.