Two new obstetrical operating rooms and a recovery area were unveiled at the Red Deer Regional Hospital on Monday morning.
The $9.7-million expansion in the hospital’s labour and delivery unit will provide greater access for high-risk pregnancies and both scheduled and emergency caesarean sections.
The operating rooms will also provide more privacy, as labouring mothers in need of an emergency delivery were previously transported to a general operating room in another part of the hospital.
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The new recovery area will allow parents quicker access to their newborns following delivery.
“Being able to nurse my baby and enjoy skin-to-skin contact with our tiny newborn was a wonderful experience for my partner and me,” mother Veronica Clark said in an Alberta government media release Monday morning.
“The difference between bringing Ilandra into the world and my previous deliveries was night and day as it was so great to be able to enjoy those moments so soon after the birth of our third baby.”
About 2,700 babies are born at the Red Deer Regional Hospital each year, including 480 emergency C-sections and 420 scheduled C-sections. The hospital offers obstetric services to much of central Alberta.
The obstetrical operating rooms are expected to free up space in the general operating rooms, allowing more than 300 more general surgery cases per year, the province said Monday.
The Red Deer Regional Health Foundation donated $1.2 million for equipment, including baby warming centres, fetal monitors, physiological monitoring equipment and anesthetic machines.