[B]URLINGTON — Spacious and decorated with sea-green furniture and wood-patterned floors and cabinets, the rooms at the University of Vermont Medical Center’s new Glen and Rosemary Wright Mother Baby Unit look like they belong in a mid-range hotel chain rather than in a hospital.
The Mother Baby Unit is no Holiday Inn, however. It’s a nearly $16 million, state-of-the-art maternity ward designed to provide privacy, comfort and lifesaving medical care to more than 2,000 mothers and babies a year, according to a news release from the UVM Medical Center.
“The opening of the new Mother Baby Unit will mark the culmination of the University of Vermont Medical Center’s three-year effort to plan, design and construct a modern space for new families to bond in a private, peaceful setting all under the care of highly trained experts,” the release said.
At an open house Monday, the Medical Center allowed invited guests to tour the new facility. Media relations strategist Michael Carrese said that about 70 guests were expected. Instead, about 200 visitors mingled with doctors, nurses and hospital staff as they explored the features offered by the new rooms.
The facility contains 22 single-bed rooms and two double-bed rooms, dramatically reducing the number of patients forced to share a room and providing 44 percent more space per room, the news release said.
The new Mother Baby Unit will have a nursery for infants who need special care, but infant-sized medical stations in each room will allow newborn babies to stay by their mothers’ sides, even during minor medical procedures, said Jennifer Robare, nurse manager of Maternity and Nursery.
Each room includes a touch-screen call center at the foot of each bed, which postpartum patients can use to request services ranging from food, ice and water to emergency medical care. Rooms also have flat screen TVs with educational programming that provides information on early parenthood and infant care.
Nicole Barnes, a mother of two with one more on the way, said that the rooms’ best qualities are the privacy and space that they provide. When she had her son Tommy, she said she had to share a small room with another new mother. The other woman was very anxious, and Barnes found it difficult to relax. Her husband, Eric, said he didn’t have a bed to sleep in when he went to visit her.
“I remember pulling chairs together to sleep,” he said, pushing at a hard wooden chair with his foot.
The new rooms are not only larger than the ones that the Barneses have used in the past, but they also have a private bathroom, 24-7 visitation hours and a second, fold-up bed for spouses.
“They might have to kick me out,” Nicole Barnes said.
The new Mother Baby Unit will be replacing the Medical Center’s existing maternity ward, which is located in outdated facilities that are 50-70 years old, according to the news release. The old ward will be converted into office space for administrative work.
Though his own children are 24 and 27, Dr. Ira Bernstein, a professor and chair of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the UVM Medical Center, remembers their births at the old maternity ward. The rooms were small and uncomfortable, and he couldn’t spend the night with his wife because she shared the room with another new mother.
“We left in a hurry,” he said.
More worrisome than a lack of comfort or privacy, the current maternity ward is inconveniently located two floors away from the Labor and Delivery unit and the Neonatal ICU. If life-threatening complications occurr after delivery, mothers need to be moved two floors away before receiving care, Bernstein said. The new Mother Baby Unit is located just down the hall from those units.
The Mother Baby Unit officially opens Aug. 4, according to the news release.
A total of $3 million of the cost of the project was provided by philanthropic donations from the community, Carrese said. The facility was named after Glen and Rosemarie Wright – two of the biggest donors.
Though he wasn’t authorized to give specific figures, Carrese said that donations from the Wrights, as well as a large personal donation from University of Vermont Medical Center CEO Dr. John Brumsted and his wife, Jessica, “played a large part in making the project possible.”
“Over many years of involvement, I’ve come to understand the important role that philanthropy plays in helping to keep this one of the top academic medical centers in the country, and that’s why Rose and I are thrilled to support this wonderful new facility,” Glen Wright said.
