DATE: Thursday, March 20, 1997              TAG: 9703200319

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY IDA KAY JORDAN, STAFF WRITER  

DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH                        LENGTH:   70 lines

MARYVIEW PLANS SEPARATE BIRTHING CENTER

A $4 million building at Maryview Medical Center will house a new birthing center, completely separate from the hospital and designed with its own entrances and exits.

``Giving birth is not a sickness,'' said Louise Eidson of the Maryview staff. ``It's really a wellness. We think it should be a place apart from the hospital.''

In May 1996, Maryview bought Portsmouth General Hospital, and now plans to close Portsmouth General's inpatient facilities. The birthing center will consolidate the hospital's births in one place.

In 1996, 1,407 babies were born in the two hospitals - 744 at Maryview and 663 at Portsmouth General.

The birthing center will occupy the entire second floor of the new building, which is located on the side of Maryview next to Willett Hall. The city sold Maryview 4.6 acres of land behind Willett at $35,000 an acre. That land will be used for parking adjacent to the new building.

In addition to the purchase price of the land, Maryview agreed to spend $89,000 to relocate a ballfield on the property to Churchland Park. Also, Maryview will upgrade another baseball field that will remain behind Hunt-Mapp Middle School with lights and a new concession stand.

A ground-breaking ceremony tentatively is set for May 12, and construction is expected to take 10 to 12 months.

Wayne Jones, executive vice president of Maryview, said the first floor of the new building will house support services and educational activities.

``We don't know exactly which programs will be in the building, but obviously we will include as many components of women's care as we can,'' Jones said.

The building will include five labor and delivery rooms, 14 private rooms and a nursery.

Maryview will begin cross-training nurses to work in the new center, where one nurse will handle the duties now done by three different nurses.

``A single nurse (on each shift) will follow mother and baby through their whole stay at the center,'' Jones said. ``It will be family-centered care.''

The construction of the new building comes at the same time Maryview is looking for a buyer for the Portsmouth General Hospital buildings on Crawford Parkway.

Maryview has hired a national consulting firm to help market the property, said Nora Paffrath, acting administrator of Portsmouth General.

``They have worked with companies in other cities around the nation to market former hospital buildings for other uses,'' she said.

Bon Secours Maryview bought the hospital from Tidewater Health Care of Virginia Beach in May 1996. Maryview agreed to honor a Tidewater Health Care commitment to keep the hospital downtown until the year 2000 by continuing to operate the emergency room and some other departments at the site.

Paffrath said Maryview would like to sell the property and then lease back some space in the building for various services, including the emergency room. A rehabilitation unit and the kidney dialysis unit also would remain downtown, she said.

All inpatient care will be consolidated at Maryview by the end of this year. Jones said the hospital is reopening 24 beds on the fourth floor of Maryview's main building and gaining 19 additional medical-surgical beds by shifting a pain clinic from Ireton Hall, which is part of Maryview, to the hospital's behavioral medicine building.

The hospital will have 267 medical-surgical beds when the changes are completed, Jones said. He added that the average daily census at the two hospitals in 1996 was 206 patients. ILLUSTRATION: An artist's rendering of the building that will house

a birthing center at Maryview Medical Center.

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