Entity prohibits use of the name Pérola Byington and new unit will be named Hospital da Mulher

The São Paulo government will not be able to use the name of the teacher, philanthropist and activist Pérola Byington in the hospital that will open this Wednesday (14), on Avenida Rio Branco, downtown.

The unit will receive and expand the care provided at the Pérola Byington Hospital, in Bela Vista, but the Cruzada Pró Infância did not authorize the continuity of the tribute and the new unit will be named Hospital da Mulher.

The ban was communicated by letter. In the document, dated September 5, the entity states that, after meetings with the teacher’s relatives, it was decided that the name Hospital Pérola Byington belongs to the Cruzada Pró Infância and cannot be used in the new space, whose construction cost about R$ 245 million.

The entity was founded in 1930 by Pérola Byington and Maria Antonieta de Castro to defend pregnant women and children and, in 1959, opened the hospital on Avenida Brigadeiro Luís Antônio. Cruzada managed the unit for 30 years and, in 1989, rented the building to the São Paulo State Health Department, responsible for the space ever since.

“In the present year of 2022, Cruzada Pró Infância was informed by the government of the state of São Paulo that it was no longer interested in maintaining the rent of this space, since it had built a new space in the center of São Paulo and that the same would be terminated at the end of this year in order to save on the value of the monthly rent transfer”, says the letter. Currently, the rent is R$380,000, according to the Health Department.

The document recalls that the new service will no longer be managed by the state government, but by Seconci (Social Service for Civil Construction), in a public-private partnership, and points out that the Cruzada was only informed at the beginning of August about the intention of the new managers to keep the Pérola Byington Hospital name.

Finally, the entity appreciates the desire to create a memorial dedicated to Pearl Byington in the hall of the new hospital, but reiterates the ban and states that it will take legal action against the disclosure that the place would be “the new Pearl Byington”. The report tried to contact Cruzada Pro Infância by phone, but without success.

First day

The Women’s Hospital will officially open on Wednesday (14), but this Monday (12) has already started to receive the first patients.

The housewife Débora Cristina da Silva was one of the members of the inaugural group. In treatment for cancer for a year, she had an appointment scheduled and arrived at the new building in a van available to travel between the Bela Vista unit and the Santa Cecília unit.

She hopes that the quality of care will be maintained and that, with the expansion of the cancer service at the new address, she will not have to do the radiotherapy sessions in another health unit.

According to the state secretariat, the expectation is that all services will migrate by October and that throughout 2023 the hospital will reach full operation. In this scenario, there will be 172 beds, 92 surgical, 60 clinical, 10 ICU and 10 day hospital and an annual capacity of 12,800 hospitalizations, 107,000 outpatient visits, 21,000 chemotherapy sessions, 23,700 hormone therapy and 19.8 thousand of radiotherapy.

Maria de Fátima Pinto Sandoval has also been attended at the new address. A resident of Salesópolis (SP), she reported that she was afraid to learn that the hospital would be transferred to the Cracolândia region, but believes that some changes, such as opening the gates for patients arriving from other cities at dawn, could reduce insecurity.

The fear of patients and staff was one of the biggest criticisms leveled at the transfer of the service. In response, the mayor of São Paulo, Ricardo Nunes (MDB), stated during a visit to the works in early July that he had held a tender to hire 1,000 new metropolitan civil guards and that he had increased the starting salary of GCMs by 72%.

This Monday, there were four security posts, one on each corner of the block taken over by the hospital. The security is carried out by a private company and the employees informed that the monitoring will work 24 hours.