A new $11.9 million intensive care unit for newborn babies will open today at Sutter Roseville Medical Center.
The neonatal intensive care unit has 16 beds and the most up-to-date equipment to handle emergencies for the sickest of infants, the hospital announced.
In a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday, Pat Brady, the medical center's chief executive officer, called the 13,000-square-foot unit "one of the nicest" in the United States.
"We thought our NICU would be open in 2010," he told a crowd of well-wishers. "We're two years ahead of schedule."
Brady said the facility, on the lower level of the hospital, will be able to expand by 14 beds, if the hospital desires.
He noted that Sutter Roseville Medical Center opened in 1997 with 168 beds for all patients. There will be 399 beds by year's end, he said.
"That's staggering growth in such a short amount of time," he said.
Among features of the NICU are:
• Four private rooms that allow a mother to stay overnight with her baby.
• Bassinet stations in semi-private rooms so that medical staff and parents can all be involved in the baby's care.
• A sleep room similar to a motel room so that parents and baby can transition from the hospital to home.
• A room allowing mothers to use breast pumps in privacy.
At the ceremony was Alicia Gambone, a registered nurse at the hospital who helped design the NICU.
Three years ago, Gambone gave birth to her son, Giancarlo, who was delivered prematurely and had respiratory problems.
"He was four weeks early and his lungs were not fully developed," she said. "He had to be transferred to Sutter Memorial Hospital in Sacramento for neonatal care."
When Sutter Roseville Medical Center began putting plans together for the NICU, officials asked Gambone to be on the design committee.
"I gave input," she said. "My priority was to see a unit where the parents could be with the baby and not be in the way of the doctors or nurses."
Roseville Mayor Jim Gray, Placer County Supervisor F.C. "Rocky" Rockholm, State Assemblyman Ted Gaines and Placer County Sheriff Ed Bonner attended the ceremony.
Funding for the NICU came from Sutter Health and from the Sutter Roseville Medical Center Foundation, the hospital's fundraising arm.
Call The Bee's Art Campos, (916) 773-2825.
