Roswell/Children's collaborate for kids

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - On July 19, 3-year-old Eli Olsen woke up with a stomach ache. Doctors discovered he had a malignant tumor.

His dad, Andrew Olsen, said, "Within eight hours, pretty much our world had been turned upside down."

Eli was treated at both Women and Children's Hospital and Roswell Park.

Roswell Park President Dr. Donald Trump said, "Roswell Park and Women and Children's Hospital have collaborated in bringing outstanding care to kids with blood diseases and cancer for more than 40 years."

Both hospitals have experts, but patients typically have to shuttle back and forth.

"Roswell in the morning and Children's in the afternoon and there'd be times when we were at Children's and we'd get in an ambulance and go to Roswell and come back and the doctors would be bouncing back and forth."

But that will soon change. Buffalo's new Children's Hospital on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus will have an entire floor directed by Roswell Park and devoted to the care of children with cancer and blood diseases.

Roswell Pediatrics Chair Dr. Martin Brecher said, "This is really the ideal "one-stop shopping" if you will, for these patients with very complex needs to see all the specialists they need, get all the care they need in one consolidated setting with a staff that is doing nothing but this."

The two hospitals have just signed an agreement outlining their plans for the integrated unit. The new center is likely to become a model of pediatric cancer care. Kids like Eli will get all their treatment in one place.

Eli's grandfather, Scott Friedman, said, "Eli has now completed his intensive regimen of chemotherapy, and all signs point to a successful treatment."

Dr. Brecher added, "I knew his life was getting back to normal when he knocked on my door last night to trick or treat."

Groundbreaking for the new Children's Hospital is scheduled for next spring, and they hope to be done by the end of 2015.