Plans for renovated maternity ward at GMH revealed

Plans to renovate the Maternity Ward at the Guam Memorial Hospital have come to life as renderings of the new family birthing center were unveiled on Tuesday. The ward has remained the same for over two decades and over the years has decreased in functionality.

As it stands, expectant mothers who give birth at GMH not only must deal with the pressures of labor but also the inconvenience of being moved from room to room four to five times during their labor, delivery and recovery. It wasn't until last October that a commitment was made to modernize the ward. Leading the development for the renovations is Dr. Thomas Shieh, who said, "There is going to be eight LDRs, - the LDRP room is where we have labor, delivery, postpartum and recovery in one room the difference between the LDRP and the LDR is maybe the windows because the requirement or code is you need sunlight for the LDRP."

He continued, "Once you have delivered in LDR labor recovery and delivery you would still be transferred to post-partum."

The plans also include five more functional nurse's station and 11 newborn intensive care bays. Shieh says there are three phases to the project, saying, "The project is going to flow from here labor and delivery first and then partially into the nursery here and then we will complete the project through post-partum areas. There will be three rooms that are to be dedicated to labor delivery and recovery postpartum and that is going alongside the windows here and that is going to be state-of-the-art."

And with the commitment to providing resources from Governor Eddie Calvo, Sheih says that the time line to push out the request for proposal is in June.

But plans to modernize the maternity ward are not the only renovations that the Guam Memorial Hospital has in mind. According to Dr. Larry Lizama, interim CEO of Guam Memorial Hospital, they also plan on renovating the operating room. It was built thirty years ago or more and we need to bring it up to this day and age and with the flow of patients and again efficiency, improvement in equipments and so forth," he explained.

Lizama says that he hopes to see this happen in the next four to five years.