A key committee of the state Health Services Council has unanimously endorsed a plan by Women & Infants Hospital to build a $64-million, five-story addition to its main building, with a new neonatal intensive-care unit, 30 new obstetric beds, and more space for family services.
The Project Review Committee, which has been examining the hospital’s plan since July, voted 7-to-0 on Tuesday to recommend that the council approve the project at its next scheduled meeting, on Nov. 1.
“We’re very grateful that the committee recognized the compelling need for the project,” hospital President and CEO Constance A. Howes said in an interview. “The Project Review Committee thoroughly reviewed and questioned the need for the project and the scope of it, and we’re hopeful that (next week) it will be approved.”
If the council also clears the plan, it would go to Dr. David R. Gifford, the state health director, for final approval. The council’s role is strictly advisory, but Howes noted that in the past, health directors have generally relied on the council “to do the vetting of a project.”
If Gifford also gives his green light, Howes said, “the next step would be to start the design process in earnest,” and then to hire a construction manager and start the project.
“It takes a long time,” she added, “so we’re looking for an opening in 2009.”
Because the building would be an addition, the current facility will continue to operate normally, Howes said.
It’s been 19 years since Women & Infants opened its main building, at Gay and Dudley streets. The new, 144,500-square-foot addition would increase the building’s size by 54 percent. To pay for the project, the hospital plans to borrow $30 million in tax-exempt bonds, raise $16 million from donors, and get the remaining $18 million from equity funds.
The single biggest reason for the expansion, as Howes has described it, is the severe overcrowding of the current neonatal intensive-care unit, which was built for 41 infants but now serves, on average, about 65 babies each day.
The new NICU would accommodate 80 infants, and would incorporate a whole new model of care, with individual rooms, instead of a big common area. Private rooms have been shown to produce much better health outcomes, Howes has said, because they are quieter, reduce the chances of infection, and allow parents to spend more time with their babies.
Newborns are also staying longer in the NICU than before, Howes has said, because even tiny, very premature babies who used to die are now surviving, but they still need intensive care for weeks and even months. Since 1980, NICU patient days have increased by 56 percent.
Women & Infants delivers about 73 percent of all babies born in the state – more than 9,600 last year, more than any other New England hospital – and it serves as a regional hub for women and babies who need the most advanced and intensive medical services.
