FL Hospital To Build New Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

LUTZ, FL — St. Joseph’s Hospital North in Lutz is building an eight-bed Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) that will open this summer.

The Level II NICU will provide specialized 24/7 care for babies born prematurely, underweight, or with special health needs and requirements such as IVs, respiratory therapy or other therapies, according to a news release from the hospital.

The unit will be staffed by neonatologists, neonatal nurse practitioners and experienced neonatal nurses. The NICU will supplement the hospital’s existing labor and delivery, and Mom and Baby maternity services.

Construction on the $2 million, 5,431-square-foot NICU started in January.

An innovative feature of the NICU will be two “couplet care” rooms, where mothers and babies are cared for together, the hospital said. Normally, mothers and babies are separated when babies need to go to the NICU. The two couplet care rooms are each 525 square feet.

“St. Joseph’s Hospital-North will be the first in the Tampa Bay area to have couplet rooms, and to the best of my knowledge, the first in the state of Florida,” Charles Ennis, a BayCare patient services director overseeing several of the health system’s NICUs, said.

The other NICU rooms are private for one baby. The private NICU rooms, measuring 280 square feet each, include sleeping accommodations, a bathroom, and a shower for a parent or another loved one to stay overnight with the baby.

"We’ve seen nationally that birth rates are going down but the needs for NICU beds is increasing,” Sara Dodds, St. Joseph’s Hospital North president, said. “We know that some of that is due to women having babies later in life and women also dealing with more medical issues. We are giving local moms an option to deliver close to home with the availability of a NICU.”

Ennis added, “For example, if a baby needs to be in a NICU, this will help eliminate traveling to Tampa for parents and families.”

The NICU will be able to stabilize a baby’s condition and arrange for transport to St. Joseph’s Women’s Hospital Level IV NICU if a higher level of care is needed. A Level IV NICU provides the highest level of care.

The unit is adjacent to the hospital’s Mom and Baby unit and is converted from a space that formerly housed adult medical and surgical patient rooms.