Sunday, April 27, 2025
St. John’s Episcopal Hospital is making major strides in maternal care as construction progresses on a new labor, delivery, recovery, and postpartum unit.
In May of last year, the hospital began construction on the new labor, delivery, recovery and postpartum unit designed to enhance patient care and experience, uphold the highest safety standards, and provide compassionate care in a welcoming environment for mothers in the community.
The state-of-the-art unit will feature six labor, delivery, recovery and postpartum rooms, each roughly 400-square-feet.
The unit will also include two advanced cesarean operating rooms, two recovery rooms and four triage rooms.
Karen Paige, the executive vice president and chief operating officer at the hospital, said that the labor, delivery, recovery and postpartum unit hadn’t been updated in decades, and revitalizing it was long overdue.
She also emphasized the importance of the hospital’s commitment to patient care, saying that these new rooms are designed to allow new mothers to feel comfortable during this important time in their lives.
“These rooms have been designed for new moms to be delivering and recovering in the in the same room, but it’s also been designed for the focus on knowing that we want to have our families with us during this very important time in life” Paige said. “We want our moms in our own community, to deliver here. So it’s about patient experience, high-quality care, and it is about making sure that we’re including everybody.”
The hospital has been raising funds for this project through its ICARE Foundation. They have also received grants from every level of government, including a $500,000 grant from Assemblywoman, Stacey Pheffer Amato, who was born in the hospital when it was St. Joseph’s Hospital.
Dr. Jacqueline Marecheau, the chairwoman in the department of obstetrics and gynecology, said that there is a significant morbidity and mortality rate in the Rockaways, and this unit will really help to reduce that.
“Our community faces significant maternal health disparities, with higher rates of morbidity and mortality, preterm birth, limited access to high quality perinatal care,” she said. “This is a strategic investment in health equity, ensuring that all women, regardless of their socioeconomic status, receive comprehensive, culturally competent and culturally competent care.”
A labor, delivery, recovery, and postpartum unit, is an area that allows a mother to stay in the same space throughout her entire birthing process.
Dr. Keisha-Ann Wisdom, the senior vice president of patient services and the chief nursing officer, said that allowing mothers to stay in one space throughout their birthing process allows them to build trust with one nurse and provide a better experience for them.
“It is important to be able to have continuity of care with your nursing staff,” Wisdom said. “Building that trust, assessing your patient, seeing how the mom is responding to treatments throughout both delivery and post operatively, you’re able to identify any critical needs that this mom may have, an early sign of where there could be a problem, because you were there from the beginning.”
Hospital officials said that construction of the unit is considered on time, and is set be completed later this year.
