Oishei Children's Hospital in Buffalo wants to build 12 private inpatient rooms to support and co-locate care for the hospital's high-risk maternity patients.
The hospital this week submitted a Certificate of Need to the State Department of Health to enact the change.
Currently, high-risk mothers occupy beds throughout the hospital's Labor and Delivery and Mother-Baby floors. The additional 12 rooms would be designed to flexibly accommodate any patient overflow or surge planning should the need arise.
The project, which would relocate and rearrange some services on the seventh floor to accommodate the maternity expansion, will cost about $6.6 million.
In a statement, Oishei President Allegra Jaros said the much-needed expansion would allow better care for more high-risk moms, both before and after delivery. Oishei said the number of baby deliveries has increased 35% over the past decade, many of them high-risk deliveries.
Oishei is the region's only Level Four Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and state-designated Regional Perinatal Center.
