page_title: John R. Oishei Children's Hospital
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: John R. Oishei Children's Hospital / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Established in 1892, Women &amp; Children's Hospital of Buffalo is among the first institutions of its kind in the United States.
context_page_description: John R. Oishei Children's Hospital, sometimes known as simply Oishei Children's is a women's and children's hospital in Buffalo, New York, that opened in 2017 and provides pediatric specialties and subspecialties to infants, children, teens, and young adults up to age 21, and maternity services for expectant mothers. It is located at the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus and has 185 inpatient beds. It is a pediatric facility serving patients in Western New York and parts of Southern Ontario. The hospital is one of the only freestanding children's hospitals in New York State. OCH is a teaching hospital affiliated with the State University of New York at Buffalo and is affiliated with the Kaleida Health System.
  The hospital contains an ACS verified level 1 pediatric trauma center, one of the few in the region. OCH also has a rooftop helipad to transport critically ill patients to and from the hospital.
  The hospital is named after the John R. Oishei Foundation, which donated $10 million for the development of the hospital.
context_section_description: Pediatrics in Buffalo dates back to 1982 when the original Children's Hospital of Buffalo (later renamed to Women and Children's Hospital of Buffalo WCHOB) opened on Bryant Street.
  
  The push for a new children's hospital in Buffalo dates back to 1999 when plans for a new children's hospital to replace the old Women and Children's Hospital of Buffalo were created due to aging facilities and a lack of modern amenities at the old WCHOB. The plans from Kaleida Health included moving the children's hospital to the downtown Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus to better consolidate their facilities. Residents of Buffalo did not support the planned move and launched a campaign against the movement and Kaleida Health called "save our children's hospital," which included many celebrities from Buffalo including Jim Kelly and Pat LaFontaine.   
  In 2007 new proposals from Kaleida Health to renovate the hospital at the existing site angered many residents who were concerned that renovations of the hospital would ruin the character of the neighborhood. Kaleida then returned to the original proposal to move the hospital downtown. This renewed proposal met with much less resistance from the general public than their previous attempts.
  Construction on the hospital started in 2014 at an estimated cost of $350 million, $35 million of which was provided by the state of New York and $10 million from the John R. Oishei Foundation. The hospital was built by Turner Construction and designed by the acclaimed architectural firm, Shepley Bulfinch. The design included 12 floors and 400,000 square feet of space.
  
  On November 10, 2017, 125 patients were moved from the old WCHOB to the new hospital by a team of doctors, nurses, and volunteers.
caption: The Women's and Children's Hospital of Buffalo, which was closed in 2017
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