The new owners of Eastern Connecticut Health Network have sent out construction documents and are seeking bids to renovate and expand Manchester Memorial Hospital’s maternity ward.
It’s the next large project on the $75 million “to do” list of renovations and upgrades required by last year’s $105 million sale agreement that saw the formerly nonprofit ECHN taken over by a for-profit, California-based company, Prospect Medical Holdings.
Officials are now requesting estimates and projected schedules for the work, and hope to have that information within the next few weeks, Dennis McConville, senior vice president of strategic planning of what is now Prospect ECHN, said this week.
Prospect ECHN’s CEO, Michael Collins, said there would be an increase of 15 to 20 rooms at the 71 Haynes St. birthing unit, where labor, delivery, recovery, and post-partum recovery would take place in the same space.
There also will be five rooms set aside for women whose doctors order bed rest before birth, or who need post-partum care beyond the typical 48 hours, which won’t affect the labor and delivery rooms, he added.
The expansion, which will take over space now being used by doctors as a sleep area, is partly required after a Mansfield obstetrics group joined Prospect ECHN last spring, bumping the number of expected births at Manchester Memorial from the current 1,200 to 1,500 a year.
Rockville General Hospital in Vernon, which also is part of Prospect ECHN, closed its birthing center in 2010. At the time Manchester Memorial’s maternity ward patient census was about 900 births a year.
As a result, Manchester Memorial occasionally must use overflow beds and a nursery on another floor called “Close to Home,” that’s used when the moon is full or the atmospheric pressure suddenly drops — times when many full-term babies are born.
Those rooms have already been spruced up with new flooring, fresh paint, and modern wallpaper.
Along with updated medical equipment, workers also installed dark wood paneling along one wall with shelves, flat-screen TVs, and vases filled with orchids. Each room also has a unique painting of calming images, such as a beach scene or floral design.
While equipped to handle most every aspect of birth, the room’s atmosphere is decidedly less clinical.
“They remind me of hotel rooms,” Nina Kruse, Prospect ECHN spokeswoman, said this week while showing off the auxiliary ward that was empty.
“But it would be so much better to have everybody in the same space,” McConville said, noting that’s the main reason for renovating and enlarging the current birthing center where 30 babies are delivered each week on average.
“It’s the right thing to do,” Collins agreed, not just from a business standpoint, but for patient satisfaction.
Another project in the works for the coming year is creating four single-occupancy rooms out of what are now semi-private rooms on the surgical floor, with larger handicapped-accessible bathrooms that can accommodate patients weighing up to 750 pounds.
“That helps us address ADA compliance and code, and it’s really to the benefit of the patients,” McConville said, noting that many patient bathrooms were built in the 1950s, prior to the Americans with Disabilities Act.
It also will satisfy the accreditation process for bariatric weight-loss surgery, McConville said.
Another project already out to bid is renovation of Manchester Memorial’s fluoroscopy room, where moving picture X-rays of functions like swallowing rather than a still image can be viewed for diagnosis of various conditions.
“It really is an essential piece of equipment for a hospital these days,” McConville said.
The hospital’s employee parking garage will also get a concrete facelift, he said.
While structurally sound, it’s in need of repaving and cosmetic patches along the walls. Builders are now taking a look and should be coming in with bids soon, he said.
There will also be some upgrades to the public areas at both Rockville General and Manchester Memorial that will be addressed after the holidays, he said.
That includes reopening Rockville General’s front mansion entrance, which has been closed for years, and renovating the rear handicap entrance.
The gift shop was recently moved to the front of that hospital and new waiting room furniture installed in the lobby.
Requests are also in for newer, updated laboratory equipment for blood and urine testing, Collins and McConville said, and a lot of other imaging or diagnostic equipment will need to be replaced over the next few years.
Roughly $10 million in capital projects was spent in the first year of Prospect’s ownership of ECHN, which was consummated in October 2016.
Those included creation of a new 24-bed locked psychiatric ward at Rockville General, which opened last month, and purchasing 18 new anesthesia machines for all ECHN surgical facilities.
