The Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children is no more. Like its 18 counterparts across the country, the Salt Lake hospital will now be called Shriners Hospital for Children.
The Shriners voted to change the name of the 74-year-old non-profit hospital system at a recent convention.Gene Bracewell, chairman of the board for the hospitals, said the old name no longer reflects the patients as it did when the first Shriners Hospital opened in 1922. Most of its patients then were children crippled by polio.
"Medical technology has changed over the years. Conditions that might have permanently crippled a child in the past are now treatable and correctable," said Peter F. Armstrong, chief of staff at the Shriners Hospital Intermountain Unit in Salt Lake City. "I see children leave this hospital every day who can run, ski, dance, wrestle, play football and basketball.
"No one would think of these kids as crippled," he said.
Shriners Hospitals provide free medical care for children who otherwise would go without. The Salt Lake City hospital treats about 900 patients each year from Utah and surrounding states as well as the provinces of Sonora and Chihuahua, Mexico.