The Daily Egyptian is published by the students of SIU at Carbondale. Except during vacations and exam weeks, The Daily Egyptian is published Monday through Friday during the fall and spring semesters and TWThF during the summer semester."

Making it feel more like home

After more than four months of construction, the first phase of renovations of the obstetrics unit at Memorial Hospital of Carbondale is nearly complete.

Temporary walls cordon off construction areas on the second floor and visitors are largely oblivious of the seemingly other world behind them.

As doctors deliver babies and nurses scramble checking machines just feet away, construction workers are threading cables and erecting walls.

The renovations, which will eventually provide new staff support rooms, a new nursery and structural support with the addition of earthquake resistant walls, are part of an $18 million facelift that started more than four years ago.

First, more birthing rooms were added, then an additional post-partum wing was built and now the unit will be completely renovated by the spring of 2006, said hospital administrator George Maroney.

Tom Stewart, director of the hospital's facilities department, said the renovations are aimed to make the hospital feel less institutional.

"Delivering is not an illness like you would normally association with a hospital," Stewart said. "It's a time for families to bond and making it seem more like home helps with that."

Stewart said that idea could be seen in the newly built post-partum wing, where the rooms have hardwood floors and are furnished with gliding rocking chairs, wooden baby cribs and convertible sofas. Framed art dot the walls, which are trimmed with pale green paint. Supply cabinets were moved outside of the rooms, which are set back from the hallway to insure privacy.

The completed renovations have received praise from workers and patients alike. Cindy Frenkel, director of maternal child services, said nurses call the environment "calming," but keeping the department operational during the process posed an interesting problem.

"We are building right in the middle of everything," Stewart said. "But it's practically invisible and that's because more than a year and a half of planning went into this phase alone.

"We wanted to keep everything working smoothly, so we have weekly meetings with the staff, and we discuss where we will be building so they can move and work around us."

So far the hard work and extensive planning has paid off.

"When people walk in the first thing they say is 'This doesn't look like a hospital,'" Stewart said. "And that's just what we want."

 

 

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