Duke, UNC announce plans to build the state’s only free-standing children’s hospital
The Triangle’s two academic health systems said Tuesday that they plan to build the state’s only freestanding children’s hospital.
Duke Health and UNC Health are creating a new nonprofit, North Carolina Children’s, to build and operate the 500-bed hospital. A site has not yet been chosen but is expected to be announced this summer. It will involve a campus of at least 100 acres with a children’s outpatient center and a children’s behavioral health hospital.
The inpatient hospital is expected to open in the early 2030s, though other services, such as behavioral health and outpatient surgery, may be available several years earlier.
Both Duke and UNC already have children’s hospitals, as does the region’s other large health system, WakeMed. But the two academic systems say they hope to draw on their expertise and research to provide more sophisticated pediatric care, allowing families from across the state to remain in North Carolina for complex treatments.
“North Carolina’s current children’s hospitals do not have the ability to build broad-based, highly specialized pediatric care,” said Wesley Burks, a pediatrician who is CEO of UNC Health and dean of the UNC School of Medicine. “This means that sick kids often have to transfer between hospitals, or worse and often, have to leave North Carolina for treatment.”
Duke and UNC announced their new partnership Tuesday in front of hundreds of their employees, politicians and would-be donors to the project at Marbles Kids Museum in downtown Raleigh.
Lyndsi Sigmon told the audience about her family’s experience finding treatment for her son Luke, who was born with a heart condition that required surgery when he was an infant. Searching for the best options for their son, the family eventually went to Boston for a second surgery and follow-up care, leaving their community and support system.
“It’s hard to have a sick child,” Sigmon said. “It’s even harder 1,000 miles from home.”
State jump starts a $2 billion project
Duke and UNC say they’ve been planning a children’s hospital for a decade. They say the effort got a big boost last year when state lawmakers agreed to provide $320 million to North Carolina Children’s.
Senate leader Phil Berger, an early champion of the project, noted that North Carolina is the largest state without a standalone children’s hospital. Aside from the benefits for children and their families, Berger said, North Carolina Children’s would be one of the largest economic development projects in the state’s history.
“It’s more than just a hospital. It’s more than just a research facility. It’s more than just a place where people will have jobs.,” he said. “It will say something about the state and say something about the people of North Carolina that is a huge positive across this nation and around the world.”
Duke and UNC estimate North Carolina Children’s will cost about $2 billion to build and equip, and about half of that is expected to come from donations. The last speaker at Tuesday’s event was former state treasurer Richard Moore, now CEO of First Bancorp and head of the hospital’s philanthropy committee. Moore told those in the room they will be asked to pitch in.
“I or part of this team will be in touch,” he said. “We’ll be begging, and you better not say no.”
When it comes to building new hospitals, Duke and UNC are often rivals, contesting the need for each other’s facilities or making the case to state regulators that theirs would be a better fit. In this case, the children’s hospital is exempt from the state’s standard certificate of need process, where hospitals must show that they’re meeting a need identified by state regulators, said UNC spokesman Alan Wolf. The legislature granted that exception when it agreed to help fund the project.
Some joked about Tar Heels and Blue Devils working together, but doctors from both health systems said they’ve long shared pediatric patients, training and research.
“These two great organizations have come together over the years around children’s care in ways that many of you probably don’t know,” said Craig Albanese, Duke Health’s CEO and a pediatric surgeon. “North Carolina Children’s is simply the next step in this progression.”
This story was originally published January 28, 2025 at 11:52 AM.
