Albert E. and Gena Reaud Children’s Emergency Center offers ‘sacred work’ to Southeast Texas youth

As the only pediatric emergency room between Houston and Lafyette, the Albert E. and Gena Reaud Children’s Emergency Center inside Baptist Beaumont Hospital offers care for Southeast Texas’ children that just cannot be had without a 100-mile trek down Interstate 10. This Christmas season, the one-of-akind regional facility is celebrating a decade of service to the community – and to the community’s children.

Always open, the Albert E. and Gena Reaud Children’s Emergency Center offers treatment for a wide range of pediatric medical problems for patients ranging in age from infancy through 16 years old, including emergent and nonurgent medical needs. Among the problems the children’s ER handles are colds, fever, croup, and respiratory concerns; seizures, asthma, and blood diseases; and injuries resulting in trauma. And, if further care is necessary, patients can be transferred immediately to a Houston children’s unit.

According to Baptist Hospitals of Southeast Texas CEO Justin Doss, more than 125,000 children have been treated at the local children’s ER in the last 10 years. Doss added that the monumental feat has been accomplished thanks to the dedicated ER doctors, nurses and staff of the specialized unit. Heading up the children’s ER team is Dr. Ali Osman, who attributed the specialized training undertaken by the pediatric ER staff with providing unmatched care for the children treated at the facility.

“What makes the pediatric ER special is … the doctors, nurses and health care providers are a special population, with special sets of skills,” Osman said, adding that years of training is required of persons entrusted with acute care for young patients. “You just don’t come in in the morning and become a pediatric ER health care provider.”

According to Osman, the staff of the pediatric ER needs to be “good with kids, good with parents,” and great in providing stylized heath care for those in need.

Now with a decade of service to the community already provided, the children’s emergency center named for the late Albert E. and Gena Reaud continues to be heralded as a shining example of the community’s commitment to locally-provided health care as Baptist Beaumont Hospital showcased the facility for its 10th anniversary on Dec. 19. The children of Albert E. and Gena Reaud, Wayne A. Reaud and Jon Reaud, attended the milestone event and continue to herald the facility as a much-needed community asset that proudly bears the names of great people who raised their children to be God-fearing, charitable and kind to all – especially to His children.

Commenting on behalf of the Reaud family charitable trust that provided funding for the Albert E. and Gena Reaud Children’s Emergency Center, Jon Reaud extolled the facility as a “tremendous blessing when you have a child in need of care.”

Unlike the adult emergency room, the children’s emergency center offers private rooms, decorated for a child’s comfort, and no wait to get in. Pediatric Emergency Department staff are specialty-trained pediatric registered nurses, Advanced Practice Nurses (APNs), and board-certified emergency physicians, who work closely with social workers to help reduce stress and anxiety for children and their families needing care from the pediatric ER.

“It’s an amazing thing to have here in Southeast Texas,” Reaud said, offering gratitude for “every single person in this hospital that makes it work.”

“Performing sacred work every day,” CEO Doss recited of the hospital motto, is especially true of the children’s emergency center. The facility is made available to anyone seeking its services thanks to donors including the Reaud Charitable Trust, Ronald McDonald House Charities and the Jean Pipkin Charitable Trust.

Admission to the Albert E. and Gena Reaud Children’s Emergency Center is offered through the Baptist Beaumont Hospital ER.