It’s a little after 3 p.m. and the L-shaped nurses’ station at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital is buzzing with nurses and doctors; charts and medical samples; ambulance crews and radio calls. It’s dark and cramped, with barely enough space to turn around. Patients are everywhere. “There’s no room. We have patients in the halls,” said Director of Emergency and Trauma Services Vivian Rebel, motioning toward a row of gurneys with bandaged and ailing patients parallel-parked in the hallway like cars. “And this isn’t busy yet,” she says. Such conditions are one reason Henry Mayo launched a $14.1 million project to build a ground-up emergency room on a sloping hill just off the 217-bed hospital’s main building. The facility, which broke ground in March 2005, is set to open this month. It will work in tandem with the existing 21-bed ER, which last saw a renovation in the 1980s. Eventually, the old emergency room will be shut down and operations shifted to the new facility. In its place, a new lobby and additional emergency room space will be constructed at a cost of $6.8 million. “This entire project was developed by ER staff,” Rebel said, walking through the bright, 9,000-square-foot space earlier this month, as a few nurses finished stocking shelves and installing computers. More beds, services The single-floor addition has enough space for 18 new beds, a medication area, paramedic base station and rooms designated for trauma, obstetrics, critical and cardiac care. It’s open and bright which is to say the polar opposite of the current emergency room just a few feet away. It also brings the total number of emergency beds at Henry Mayo to 36, but that number will fluctuate until the entire project is finished. The rooms are arranged around a triangle-shaped nurses’ station in the center of the emergency room, a space at least five times bigger than the old nurses station, Rebel said. Each room is equipped for two beds, although the stations are hardwired and piped to add more in case of an emergency, such as an earthquake, when other hospitals are out of commission, Rebel said. “There is a cost involved with that and the hospital stood behind us all the way,” she said. More importantly, the rooms afford the private space not offered to patients in the old ER, which has only curtains separating the areas. “You deserve privacy, and that’s what you’re getting with this facility,” said hospital spokeswoman Andie Bogdan. An airtight room just off the new main ambulance entrance is devoted to emergencies involving hazardous materials and infectious situations and includes a designated air system and shower. Bracing for growth Henry Mayo’s new facilities arrive as the Santa Clarita Valley is expected to add 4,000 new residents through 2011, according to a report from consulting group California Economic Forecast. Mayo is the only acute care facility in the Santa Clarita Valley and the additional population has already put a huge demand on its ER, which was designed to serve about 18,000 patients a year. Last year, it served 41,000; by 2010, that number is expected to grow to 50,000. Rebel said the new space would help hospital staff better handle the increasing numbers while also offering the current community a far better place to receive care. “It’s going to give them comfort and increased privacy,” she said. Santa Clarita Mayor Laurene Weste said the new ER is badly needed. “Our community is in dire need of a larger emergency department and we look forward to what this expansion project will bring to Santa Clarita,” she said. Another benefit is that the sparkling new ER facility with the latest gadgets and gizmos could act as a recruitment tool, luring staff to Henry Mayo. That’s a huge benefit at a time when most hospitals, including Henry Mayo, are grappling with a dearth of nursing and bracing for a doctors shortage. “I hope so,” Rebel said. “It’s too early to tell.”
