Patients transferred to new children’s hospital

About a dozen ambulances have started moving patients from Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago to the city’s new Lurie Children’s Hospital.

Hospital officials say the move started early Saturday and is expected to take between 10 and 18 hours. About 130 pediatric patients will be moved to the new facility that’s three miles away. Lurie Children’s Hospital spokeswoman Mary Kase Daly says it’s been going smoothly and as of about 10 a.m. 52 patients were transferred.

Daly says hospital officials have been planning the move for four years. She says every month for the last year the hospital has done trial exercises to get ready.

Patients are riding to the new hospital in ambulances with one parent. Once they arrive they’re greeted by 60 volunteers wearing red aprons.