Women’s care has been a priority for HCA Mercy Hospital since it was founded 75 years ago this month by Miami’s Archdiocese and staffed by the Sisters of St. Joseph, says CEO Allyssa Tobitt. That emphasis was reinforced last spring with the opening of a $42.8-million expansion to the hospital’s Women’s Services center.
It includes a 25-bed Level 3 neonatal intensive care unit, expanded labor and delivery and postpartum units and a dedicated antepartum section for women with high-risk pregnancies who need to be hospitalized before going into labor. Separating high-risk pregnant women from the labor and delivery unit is a relatively new approach, Tobitt says, allowing the hospital “to care for those moms in a very comforting way,” away from newborns and their families.
Miami’s growth, combined with the recent closing of labor and delivery units elsewhere in the community, have increased demand, Tobitt says. HCA Mercy delivers about 3,700 babies each year, which is about a fifth of all Miami births. Meanwhile, Jackson South Medical Center closed its maternity unit in August, affecting residents in the southern part of Miami-Dade County. Farther north, North Shore Medical Center shuttered its labor and delivery unit last year in the face of a bankruptcy.
“As soon as we opened (the expanded center), we’re already almost at capacity because of how much we’ve grown,” Tobitt says. The challenge for the hospital is to keep childbirth an intimate and comfortable experience. “When a woman decides, ‘I’m going to deliver my baby here,’ they want to feel comfortable, they want to feel cared for, they want to know that they feel special and that someone is paying attention to the details about their entire stay. To walk into a place that’s crowded, you may feel like one of a bunch of people.”
HCA Mercy, located near Vizcaya just north of Coconut Grove, has a 44-acre campus on Biscayne Bay looking out on the Atlantic Ocean. The new NICU area has “best view in the entire hospital,” Tobitt says.
HCA Mercy also is home to a cutting-edge clinical trial for the MIRA robotic surgical system’s use in hysterectomies. It requires a single incision with the aim of causing less pain and scarring along with faster recovery.