November 19, 2003
BIRMINGHAM, AL — Children’s Hospital of Alabama and UAB Hospital today received state approval to build a facility that will replace women’s and infant’s inpatient services currently housed at UAB and Children’s Hospitals.
“This facility will ensure our ability to continue to provide a superior quality care to our patients,” said Dr. Jim Dearth, CEO of Children’s Hospital and Children’s and Women’s Health, the joint operating venture between UAB and Children’s. “The services for these two patient groups are spread throughout both institutions over an 11-block area. With a single facility, we will be better able to integrate the care that these two distinctive populations receive.”
The seven-story, 360,000 square foot hospital, with an additional 112,000 square feet of parking, is scheduled for completion in June 2006 at a cost of $101 million. It will be located on the block bounded by 5th and 6th Avenues South and 17th and 18th Streets. Clinical services within the hospital will include a neonatal intensive unit, a special care unit, a continuing care nursery, antepartum and postpartum units, a well-baby nursery, and labor-deliver, surgery and imaging units. Also, gynecological oncology services will be located within the new facility.
“Neither of our current facilities are able to be renovated to meet the anticipated demands of our patients,” said David Fine, CEO of the UAB Health System. “Located adjacent to UAB Hospital and Children’s Hospital, the new Women and Infant’s Facility will provide for much more convenient, advanced and efficient health care for these patients.”
“This is an important step forward for the health care of women and children in our state, especially the ones who most need our specialized care and expertise,” said UAB President Carol Z. Garrison, who chairs the UAB Health System.
Children’s Board of Trustees Chairman Margaret Porter adds, “The Children’s and Women’s Health facility will build on our tradition of commitment to the well-being of children and their families. Now mothers and their newborns will receive expert care in a loving, convenient environment designed to cater to their health care needs.”
Children’s Hospital of Alabama and the UAB Health System entered into a joint operating agreement in 2001. This entity builds upon more than 35 years of collaboration between the two health systems. In addition to continuing to provide the highest quality of care to patients, one of the goals for Children’s and Women’s Health is to further the research efforts of the nationally renowned programs in neonatology, obstetrics/gynecology, pediatrics and surgery, headed by Dr. Wally Carlo, Dr. John Hauth, Dr. Sergio Stagno, and Dr. Keith Georgeson, respectively.