Major expansion set for Sunrise hospital

Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2002 | 11:12 a.m.

Richard N. Velotta

HCA Inc.'s Sunrise Children's Hospital in Las Vegas will add more than 60 pediatric beds in a 3 1/2-year expansion project that is part of a $75 million capital improvement program.

The hospital announced the expansion of the Maryland Parkway center Tuesday, about 14 months after Southern Nevada voters rejected a bond issue for a children's hospital as part of the University Medical Center.

HCA, the nation's largest hospital operator, is based in Nashville, Tenn.

The expansion will include 130,000 square feet dedicated to the children's hospital, giving it a total of 204 beds, and will feature all private rooms. Each room will have family-centered amenities to promote shorter hospitalizations.

The project will be completed in five phases, a spokeswoman for the hospital said.

"We recognize the importance a child's family plays in the recovery process so all the private rooms and pediatric floors will have amenities that make it easier for parents and guardians to stay with their children," said Minta Albietz, vice president of material child services at Sunrise Children's Hospital.

"Research shows the positive impact of family on pediatric patients who tolerate the hospitalization experience better and have shorter stays," she said.

Family-centered features will include in-room beds and showers, playrooms and dining areas and a laundry. Some of the rooms for young cancer and heart patients will have PlayStation video game systems, computers, VCRs and digital video disc players.

Ann Lynch, a spokeswoman for Sunrise Children's Hospital, a division of HCA's Sunrise Health System, said work on the children's hospital is expected to begin in February after a current expansion of Sunrise Hospital's cardiovascular intensive care unit is completed.

Lynch said because the children's hospital expansion is part of an interrelated multiphase project, it is impossible to separate how much of the $75 million renovation is dedicated to the children's hospital.

Under Sunrise's plan, the existing Women's Pavilion will be expanded from three floors to five and a new three-story tower will be built west of the Women's Pavilion on Maryland Parkway. The existing 109,000-square-foot children's hospital will be retrofitted and incorporated in the new design, the company said.

The planned expansion is the latest in a boom in hospital and medical center growth in Southern Nevada.

Valley Health System's $70 million, 176-bed Spring Valley Hospital is under construction at Rainbow Boulevard and Hacienda Avenue, while Lake Mead Hospital in North Las Vegas is in the midst of a $1.5 million, 2,700-square-foot expansion of its emergency room.

Other companies have announced plans to build as well. St. Rose Dominican Hospital is building a third campus at Warm Springs and Durango roads, Universal Health Services is considering a 180-bed hospital in North Las Vegas, HCA plans a third Las Vegas-area hospital at Sunset Road and I-215, Park Place Medical LLC hopes to build a 120-bed hospital on Losee Road in North Las Vegas and Radix LLC wants to build a $700 million, 800-bed hospital in the Las Vegas Valley.

The county-funded University Medical Center had plans to build a children's hospital, but the proposal was derailed by voters who opposed an $80 million tax-neutral bond in June 2001. About 54 percent of 87,574 voters opposed the hospital proposal.

Clark County Commissioner Erin Kenny, who also is the chairwoman of the board of trustees for UMC, was surprised by the Sunrise announcement when she learned about it from a reporter this morning.

"I think Sunrise's management owes the public an explanation of exactly what changed from the time the hospital issue was debated and now," Kenny said. "I applaud them (Sunrise) for at least moving forward, but I challenge them to see to it that the needs of all children are met regardless of their ability to pay."

When the hospital issue was being waged last year, UMC backers accused Sunrise of staging an effective stealth campaign to promote its services and discredit UMC's argument for a public children's hospital.

Lynch said today that Sunrise's hospital expansion was on the drawing board well before the election and that the company felt it would be more effective to expand an existing center than to build a new one.

"We (Southern Nevada) just needed more beds, we didn't need a whole new building," Lynch said. "Why build a new building when we already have the 21st best children's hospital in the nation?"

She was referring to a survey conducted by Child magazine that evaluated children's medical centers nationwide based on questionnaires, comments from pediatricians and the survival rate of young patients.

"Now, Sunrise is expanding the number of beds for children without using taxpayer dollars to do it," Lynch said.