Hospital gets Level II nursery

Since it opened in March 2004, Southern Hills Hospital, on Sunset Road at the Las Vegas Beltway, has provided premium services to expectant and post-partum mothers and babies. Recently certified as a Level II nursery, now the hospital can expand its services even further.

Five delivery and five post-delivery rooms currently occupy the nursery floor of the newer hospital, and the facility still has plenty of room to grow.

Besides an extra bed available for dads who want to stay close to their infant and the new mother, the rooms come equipped with a baby warmer so infants can stay in the rooms as well.

The differences between a Level I and a Level II nursery is the difference between a well and a moderately ill child.

"It's for babies who may need intravenous therapy or total nutrition," said Jody Ursch, a nurse in the hospital's nursery. "Those that need to gain weight, or even multiple births, if people have twins."

The hospital is certified to host nine beds as part of the Level II status, but also includes rooms for bonding, isolation for those who need to stay separate from other people, and other types of amenities for mothers who have to leave their child in the care of the doctors and nurses until he or she is well enough to go home.

The hospital also provides care for women who are having high-risk pregnancies and recently implemented a test for jaundice in infants, a disease that if left untreated or undetected could cause brain damage.

Irma Avila-Turner was referred to the hospital by her perinatologist, but had already heard from other women that it would be a positive experience. Her daughter Faith, one month old, was premature and remained in the care of the hospital for a month.

But Avila-Turner didn't worry about her daughter's well-being while she stayed in the hospital.

"The staff was really experienced and so my comfort level was really high," she said. "My husband called the rooms the Bellagio suites."

Dr. Ravi Krishnan, director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the hospital, said one aspect relieved by a status upgrade from Level I to Level II in the nursery is the convenience of more comprehensive care.

"It gives us the opportunity to take care of high-risk babies," he said. "Our unit is well equipped to handle that. And we have mostly Level III nurses. We all work as a team to provide a very high level of care."