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| Sierra View District Hospital |
Sierra View District Hospital seeking staff in order to expand
Sabrina Ziegler | 3/10/08 | News
series of infrastructural expansions and service improvements to the Sierra View District Hospital will provide plenty of new jobs and increased patient care.
On the drawing board for SVDH are plans to modernize and expand the Intensive Care Unit , labor delivery and medical surgery buildings, as well as improve imaging services, which include MRI, CT scan, laboratories and dietary services.
Planners hope to achieve these service improvements within the next five years, according to Tim Lewis of public relations.
However, “we’re not going to build without the staff to fill these jobs,” said Lewis.
SVDH currently staffs 904 employees, whereas the new -larger- hospital would require a significant increase in personnel in order to accommodate the amount of patient service expected over the next several years.
Some of the predictions for SVDH within 2008 are: over 2,300 newborns and about 52,000 emergency department visits. These numbers, Lewis said, grow just about every year.
The hospital has been working in collaboration with the nursing program at Porterville College -which offers a tuition reimbursement plan- in order to facilitate their services with fully- prepared and educated personnel.
Tulare County 5th District Supervisor, Mike Ennis took a look at the staffing situation.
“The biggest problem we face in Porterville is staffing. We have a lot of jobs; we just don’t have people to fill them. We’ve got to be training more nurses right now [because] we don’t have enough. Hopefully we can educate and turn out enough people that stay in the community,” Ennis said.
Another major aspect of planning is the cost of expansion for SVDH.
A 3-story tower was an item in the original plan to expand SVDH. However, high construction fees remain a considerable obstacle to the project‘s overall feasibility. The cost of construction space for hospitals is about $1,000 per square foot, whereas ordinary office building space will typically cost $300 per square foot, according to Lewis.
“What’s important to know about hospitals is: we have so many different licenses and regulations we have to meet. Due the fact that cost associations continue to rise exponentially, we have gone back to the drawing board to find out what the community needs,” Lewis said.
Planners want to ensure that the investment SVDH makes will have both, the staff and the demand to support it.
Plans are to tear down the existing sub-acute ICU building –a section between the main building and emergency department- and construct a tower extension of the main building in its place. The ICU would, then, be located across the street from the main building, on Pearson Dr. This 35-bed department provides medical assistance on a day-to-day basis. The new sub-acute would host about 45 beds.
Parking is also being looked at: where the area surrounding SVDH leaves very little vacant space. In addition, constructing a new lot would be a costly process.
“It’s pretty expensive, but when you’re tied in with property, there’s only so much you can do. The fact that they’re kind of land-locked makes parking a problem,” Ennis said.
The issue is being negotiated in terms of where and how additional parking will be provided.
Because the SVDH board is still weighing out their plan, nothing is official yet, and preliminary statements are subject to change. However, parking will be expanded, assured Lewis.
“We know we need to expand but we need to figure out how far. Having empty staff isn’t going to help us financially,” Lewis said. Every 5 years, the SVDH planning commission looks at health care needs in the community, in order to create an agenda that withholds those needs.
“The demand is only going to increase,” Lewis said.
In the long run, Ennis believes SVDH’s expansion will, “wake up the community and help the hospital.”
However, staffing is a priority for the hospital: which means an influx of open doors for aspiring nurses in our community.
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