Golden Sun eXtra Your Local News Source, Mohave County, AZ

11/10 Ft. Mohave – Community leaders and officials from Valley View Medical Center broke ground Tuesday for an $8 million expansion. The new 14,000 square foot wing will add 24 beds to the hospital, including a new secure, state-of-the-art pediatric unit. The expansion is the second since Valley View opened just south of Bullhead City four years ago this week.

It is expected to be the largest new private construction project in western Mohave County and the Bullhead City/Laughlin/Needles area during 2010.

The project on the hospital’s north side will increase by more than one-third the size of Valley View’s acute care unit used for basic hospital stays, also known as “med/surg.” The 38-bed unit will grow by 14 more beds and an additional nurses’ station.

The new pediatric unit will include six patient rooms, a play room and an isolation room. Arizona law requires new pediatric units to have separate entrances for additional security. Creation of a pediatric unit will mean the relocation and expansion of Valley View’s award-winning acute rehabilitation unit, a hospital-within-a-hospital for patients requiring special physical, occupational and speech therapy care for injuries such as severe auto accidents, amputations, strokes and head injuries. The new rehab unit will grow from 10 beds to 12.

Also growing will be Valley View’s Women’s Center, used primarily for labor and delivery but also for gynecological care such as post-hysterectomy hospitalization. Two new beds will be added, bringing the total to six labor and delivery rooms and three post-partum rooms.

All 90 of Valley View’s patient beds will be in private rooms.

“Valley View was designed for growth,” said CEO Allen Peters. “We started working on these plans even before we completed the expansion that opened last fall. There is clearly a demand for a full-service pediatric unit serving the community from Bullhead City, Laughlin, Needles and beyond. With the growth we have seen in our deliveries, offering pediatric services is a logical next step. The addition of these services fills a need that has existed in western Mohave County and this portion of the Tri-State area.”

General contractor T. R. Orr Construction of Kingman expects to complete the project by next fall. Orr has been asked to hire local and regional subcontractors, Peters said. The architectural firm is Architectural Nexus in Phoenix.

Located approximately two miles from the point where the Arizona, Nevada and California state lines meet, Valley View serves patients from throughout the Tri-State area.

Don Bivacca, president of parent company LifePoint Hospital’s National Division, noted that Valley View’s construction, acquisition of a second medical office building and installation of new equipment has seen more than $60 million invested “to update and enhance medical services in the Tri-State area.” Since opening the hospital has already added a full-time air ambulance helicopter base, MRI, nuclear medicine, digital mammography, a cardiac catheterization unit and doubled the size of the intensive care unit. It has also been involved in many Tri-State area community activities ranging from health fairs to sponsorship of programs and support of charitable organizations.

Valley View’s new wing also requires the relocation and construction of a small flood control retention pond on hospital grounds.

Valley View is currently a 66-bed acute care hospital with two adjacent medical office buildings and an on-campus outpatient rehabilitation complex. It is part of LifePoint Hospitals, Inc., a leading hospital company dedicated to providing quality healthcare in non-urban communities.

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