South Shore University Hospital opens new private rooms for preemies, parents

South Shore University Hospital has opened its new neonatal intensive care unit, with 11 private rooms for the facility’s smallest patients and their parents.

The 6,300-square-foot space is the newest element of a $71 million upgrade of maternity and women’s services programs at the Bay Shore hospital, which delivers about 2,400 babies a year, Northwell Health said.

By the end of next year the hospital plans to add five additional private rooms to the unit, which provides care for critically ill and premature babies. Previously, the NICU had 11 beds for infants, none in private rooms. In addition to specialized medical equipment for newborns, each room includes a pull-out bed for parents.

In the rooms, parents “will have the privacy they need to learn to care and bond for their babies, while doctors will be able to participate in rounds in a private environment,” Dr. Scarlett McKinsey, associate director of neonatology for Northwell’s eastern region, said in a statement.

South Shore is undergoing a $500 million, five-year overhaul. The new NICU is part of a “transformation” of the hospital, Dr. Jolene Muscat, vice chair of OB/GYN at the hospital, said in a statement.

The hospital’s 45,560-square-foot, two-story Women and Infants Center, which includes the new NICU, is expected to be complete by the end of 2023. In December, it opened 11 private suites for mothers and newborns not requiring intensive care, as well as four beds for expectant mothers in labor.

The center also will include two additional operating rooms for women's health procedures and a new surgical system to perform minimally invasive, robotic-assisted gynecologic procedures, said New Hyde Park-based Northwell, the state's largest private employer. South Shore previously had 10 operating rooms in the main hospital, plus two operating rooms for Caesarean section births.

By Maura McDermott

maura.mcdermott@newsday.commauramcdermott

Maura McDermott is a reporter on the investigations desk. Since starting at Newsday in 2012, she has also covered real estate and the business of health care.