Plans for a $4 million renovation to the obstetrics unit at Southeast Missouri Hospital were announced Friday by the hospital's board of trustees.

The renovation will convert the Dennis B. Elrod, M.D. Obstetrics and Gynecology Center into an LDRP labor, deliver, recovery, postpartum birthing center, said James W. Wente, Southeast's administrator.

LDRP suites create a one-room maternity stay, leaving the total childbirth experience, labor, delivery, recover and postpartum, to take place in one comfortable, spacious suite.

"The suites will be larger than existing rooms and won't look like the typical hospital room," Wente said. "They are intended to be as warm and comfortable as a bedroom."

Wente said the hospital began considering renovations to its obstetrics department in the fall of 1997. However, those plans were put on hold when Southeast and St. Francis Medical Center entered into merger talks. When those talks concluded last year, the hospital again began discussions of obstetrics renovations, talking to physicians and staff and listening to patients about what they wanted, Wente said.

Officials at St. Francis Medical Center said last month that they are investigating the feasibility of adding obstetrics. Wente said Southeast's plans were in the works long before that.

The renovations, which Wente said would be paid for with internal funds, will include 15 one-bed LDRP suites, each with a private bathroom, shower, telephone, television and comfortable, non-institutional furnishings. Each suite will be equipped with all medical equipment that might be necessary but that equipment will be integrated into the decor of the room, Wente said.

"It will be a home-like atmosphere," said registered nurse MaDonna Sanders, a nursing director and obstetrics supervisor. "It will be designed to feel as comfortable as possible and allows more privacy."

The only times a woman would be moved would be in the case of a Caesarean section, when she would be taken to the obstetrics operating suite then returned to the LDRP room for recovery and postpartum, Sanders said.

There also will be four triage rooms, for monitoring pregnant women who aren't in labor or may be going into early labor, for a total of 19 licensed beds.

The suites will be arranged in a horseshoe shape around a new nursery. Close by will be two operating suites for Caesarean sections and other obstetrical surgeries. Also, the neonatal intensive care unit will be remodeled and enlarged.

In the present unit, which was last renovated in 1986, there are three areas. The nursery is in one area. Labor and deliveries are done in three labor-and-delivery rooms, two labor rooms and the operating suites in another. Then there are 14 semi-private postpartum rooms in yet another area.

Patients are often moved into two, three, sometimes four different rooms during their stay in the obstetrics unit, Sanders said.

"It takes a lot of manpower to move these patients and babies around," Sanders said. "Plus it's confusing for the patients, for the dads and for the families."

And the postpartum rooms are semiprivate with a shared bathroom and no shower.

The LDRP model will provide a greater continuity of care as well as the privacy of a home-like atmosphere with the security of a hospital environment, said Cape Girardeau obstetrician Dr. Scot G. Pringle, chairman of the hospital's obstetrics department.

The renovations also will limit access points to the unit, providing added security for infants, Sanders said.

The renovation will reduce beds in the obstetrics unit from 28 to 19 but Wente doesn't expect overcrowding.

During 1999 about 1,600 babies were born at Southeast, representing an average occupancy of 30 percent, Wente said. If the birth rate remains the same at 1,600 the occupancy for the remodeled unit's 19 beds will be 50 percent, he said.

The cost of an obstetrics hospital stay should not increase because of the new facilities, Wente said. And the suites will be available to all patients who deliver at Southeast Hospital.

The renovation will be a phased project since it will have to be done while the unit continues its day-to-day operations.

Pringle said conversion to an LDRP model is in response to patient needs and preferences.

Sanders said obstetrics patients evaluating their hospital stay consistently praise the care they received but often comment that the rooms could have been nicer or wish they hadn't been moved so many times.

The planned renovation will make the obstetrics experience at Southeast more like the pictures expectant mothers see in parenting magazine and childbirth books, Sanders said.

"The LDRP concept is not quite home, but it's the closest thing to it," said Dr. Gary S. Olson, chairman of Southeast's pediatrics department.

Wente said the hospital will file a certificate of need application for the project with the Missouri Health Facilities Review Committee, he hopes by June. The committee of legislators and governor appointees reviews projects that would cost $1 million or more and would have a significant impact on health care in a community.

Wente said he doesn't foresee obstacles to getting certificate of need approval since the plan calls for remodeling for a service already offered at the hospital and since the unit hasn't been remodeled since 1986.

If the certificate of need is approved in June, Wente said, the bidding process would begin soon afterward with construction started this summer. If all proceeds smoothly, the renovation project could be completed by the end of 2001, he said.

Wente said obstetrics have been an important component of Southeast Hospital's services since the hospital opened in 1928 and that continues today with these plans for renovations.

He said Dr. Dennis B. Elrod, who delivered more than 6,000 babies at Southeast during his career and for whom the obstetrics unit is named, would be proud of the proposed renovations.

"The birth of a child is a special experience, one we feel will be made ever more meaningful with this family-focused approach to childbirth," Wente said.