IVCH starts $15.5 million project
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Illinois Valley Community Hospital is embarking on a $15.5 million construction project that will add a third story to the hospital’s east addition to make room for a new obstetrics unit and a new intensive care unit.
“We won’t be breaking ground for this project; we’ll be breaking through the roof,” said Tommy Hobbs, IVCH chief executive officer.
The new obstetrics unit will cover about 10,000 square feet and include four labor, delivery and recovery (LDR) rooms, six postpartum rooms, a nursery and a surgical suite where cesarean sections can be performed.
“Currently, patients who need emergency c-sections have to be moved out of our existing obstetrics unit and taken to the surgery unit,” says Hobbs. “Having a c-section suite in the new obstetrics unit will be better for our patients.”
The new unit’s post partum rooms that new mothers will stay in after delivery will be larger than the rooms in the current unit. Patients will also benefit from the constant flow of information nurses will receive from a central monitoring station.
The new intensive care unit will cover approximately 5,000 square feet and have four rooms that will each be larger than the current ICU patient rooms. The ICU is now located on IVCH's second floor.
“Larger rooms in a newly-constructed unit will allow IVCH to completely modernize intensive care services,” Hobbs said.
Project plans also call for building a 7,500-square-foot fourth floor on the east addition to house mechanical systems.
IVCH has filed a letter of intent with the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board requesting issuance of a certificate of need that would allow construction of the new units to begin.
The east addition, which opened in 2003, is where the IVCH emergency department and the hospital’s surgery and day surgery units are located along with the admitting area and materials management department.
