Everett birthing unit set to open its doors

By Sharon Salyer

Herald Writer

Area residents will get their first chance this week to tour the new Providence Everett Pavilion for Women and Children, a five-story, $56 million facility that will house a variety of specialty services, some being offered for the first time in Snohomish County.

The public tours, on Friday and Saturday, are informal events to herald the building’s formal opening for medical services at midnight on Sunday. The pavilion is joined by a skybridge to the hospital’s Pacific Campus at 900 Pacific Ave.

Sister Karin Dufault, who heads the board of directors for Providence Health System, the Everett hospital’s parent organization, called the pavilion "a dream come true."

Gail Larson, chief executive of Providence Everett Medical Center, said the pavilion’s opening means many people will be able to receive their health care closer to home.

For example, a newborn intensive care unit will allow premature babies, newborns on ventilators or those with unstable conditions to be treated in Everett rather than transferred to Seattle.

The unit is a financial joint venture with Seattle’s Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center, the only such arrangement Children’s has undertaken with another hospital, said Dr. Sandy Melzer, vice president for regional services and practice manger. He declined to disclose the financial details, however.

"I think the institutional relationship was very strong," Melzer said of the decision to have a financial stake in the unit. "Both parties wanted to do it."

The unit will be staffed by Children’s physicians and nurse practitioners, he said.

Kirkland’s Evergreen Hospital Medical Center contracted with Children’s to operate a similar newborn intensive care unit that opened about two months ago, he said.

A second Children’s program, an outpatient specialty office, will be housed on the pavilion’s first floor. Children’s Everett will provide pediatric behavioral health, cardiology, endocrinology, gastroenterology, neurology, orthopedics and urology services.

A new birthing unit, with 32 private rooms, will be housed on the third floor. It replaces the hospital’s current baby unit, which has been housed at its Colby campus since the closure of the unit at the former Providence Hospital in October 1996.

Everett’s two hospitals, Providence and General Hospital Medical Center, merged in 1994.

Mark Judy, who now heads Monroe’s Valley General Hospital, worked at the former General Hospital for 17 years. "It will be a tremendous step forward for Snohomish County," he said of the services provided at the new Everett facility.

Judy said he hoped that collaboration in child delivery services might be developed between the Everett hospital, the Monroe hospital and Cascade Valley in Arlington, similar to the joint agreements the hospital have in treating heart patients.

Closure of the hospital’s 47-bed labor and birthing unit at its Colby campus frees up 20 beds right away for in-patient hospital care. Another 50 acute-care beds will be added to the Colby campus over the next 18 months.

This will help free the logjam caused by patients who are treated in the emergency room and can’t get admitted to the hospital because it’s too full.

So far this year, 43 patients treated at the Colby campus were transferred to other hospitals because there weren’t any patient beds available, said Dr. Cindy Markus, an emergency room physician.

To date, $6 million has been raised for the pavilion from 1,656 individual donors, including community and foundation members and employee and physician donations, said Dottie Piasecki, executive director of the Providence General Foundation.

"I thought it would be so terrific to have a facility like this" in Everett, said Helen Jackson, honorary head of the fund-raising campaign.

In many cases, she said, it will mean that parents with premature babies won’t have to make the 60-mile roundtrip Children’s in Seattle to visit their babies.

"It’s going to mean so much for our children," Jackson added.

You can call Herald Writer Sharon Salyer at 425-339-3486 or send e-mail to salyer@heraldnet.com.

Two open houses have been scheduled for the public to tour the new Providence Everett Pavilion for Women and Children. The five-story building is at 900 Pacific Ave. in Everett, next to the hospital’s Pacific campus. The grand opening events will be will be from noon to 7 p.m. Friday and from 10 a.m. 2 p.m. Saturday.

First floor: Breast Health Center, Family Resource Center, office space for Children’s Everett (visiting pediatric specialists) and Providence Children’s Center for physical and occupational therapy.

Second floor: 12-room pediatric unit and a 25-room newborn intensive care unit.

Third floor: New birthing unit and 32 private rooms.

Fourth floor: Perinatology program, a center to conduct tests and do genetic counseling for at-risk pregnancies; lactation program to help new mothers who want to breast feed; and postpartum unit for mothers needing to stay in hospital after a C-section or other complications.

Fifth floor: Doctors’ offices.

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