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Description

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Our Mission
La Rabida Childrens Hospital is dedicated to excellence in caring for children with chronic illness disabilities or who have been abused allowing them to achieve their fullest potential through expertise and innovation within the health care and academic communities

La Rabida provides comprehensive interdisciplinary health services to children across a continuum of care serving as a model for familycentered care

How We Accomplish Our Mission
La Rabida provides training and education of health care professionals which
will enable them to deal creatively with the challenges of children with
chronic illness and their families

La Rabida conducts research and promotes advocacy related to the
prevention diagnosis and management of children with chronic illness

La Rabida works with public and private agencies and other health care
facilities in its shared dedication to helping children and their families

La Rabida maintains an ongoing commitment to caring for children and
families regardless of their ability to pay

La Rabida is a private nonprofit organization

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History

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History of La Rabida
For the Chicago Worlds Fair Colombian Exposition in 1893 the government of Spain constructed its exhibition hall as a replica of Spains La Rabida Monastery the embarkation site of Columbus new world exploration in 1492

A Gift from Spain
After the fair the Spanish Consulate donated the building located on Lake Michigan at Jackson Harbor to the City of Chicago for use as a fresh air sanitarium for sick children A group of volunteer women led the effort to equip and staff the facility raising money for operations and recruiting volunteer physicians

Supported by Donors and Volunteers
The Womens Board of La Rabida still in existence today made it their mission to provide a medical refuge for sick children and relief for quottired and weary mothers

Early in its history La Rabida was saving the lives of children who suffered from illnesses and diseases associated with slum squalor and unsafe food handling practices Children acquired severe and sometimes fatal illnesses from milk and food that had not been stored and cooled properly

For generations La Rabida has responded to the medical needs companion to the time As food handling technology improved La Rabida turned its attention to rheumatic fever which was claiming the lives of young children between the 1930s through the 1950s The hospital gained international recognition for research that led to the eradication of the disease

Now a Specialty Hospital
In the 1960s with the threat of rheumatic fever quelled La Rabida made a formal commitment to treat the chronic illnesses of childhood

Today La Rabida employs some of the nations top professionals who provide treatment of lifelong medical conditions including asthma cerebral palsy diabetes Down syndrome sickle cell disease and developmental disabilities It also provides Illinois most extensive hospitalbased programs for child abuse and trauma serving serves as a model for other health care institutions across the US