San Juan Regional Medical Center Opens New Pediatric Unit

San Juan Regional Medical Center's Pediatric Unit is open and ready to start serving its youngest patients with new and improved rooms, a playroom, remodeled nurses station, and other amenities in the Four Corners' only designated pediatric center. You're watching the Local News Network, brought to you by Pop's Truck and RV Center and the Three Rivers Brewery. I'm Wendy Graham Settle.

Our former pediatrics unit had fewer beds. I think we had 10 beds in the old unit. We have 14 beds here, so we experience an increased capacity for patient care. So hopefully we can serve as a place for kids from all over the Four Corners to receive their care close to home. That's thing number one. Thing number two is a lot more, the colors are brighter. You know, the space in addition to being bigger just feels a lot more open and a lot more welcoming and hopefully will help encourage healing, swifter healing.

San Juan Regional Medical Center partnered with its building wing's children's fund to fundraise almost $780,000 to fund the remodel, which aims to provide high quality healthcare to the residents of San Juan County and the Four Corners area. Patient rooms include private bathrooms, an upgrade from the older unit where patients and their families would have to share rooms; television screens; and a reclining chair to ease some of the stress of caring for a sick child.

The majority of the money came right from our community and it's nice that we're helping to keep our kiddos better. It also is a great opportunity to welcome in people that might be moving to our area. If you don't have a great healthcare system for your kids, they're not going to move here. So to have this great facility, to have great physicians is a wonderful welcome for them.

Upgrades also included a remodel of the nurses' station, two new entry points with increased security, negative pressure rooms to prevent the spread of disease, and a playroom for children who are well enough to expend some excess energy. The playroom, which was donated by Dr. Brad Scoggins and his wife, offers a variety of toys and games to help brighten up the stays of the residence.

The playroom in which we're standing is a new feature. The old pediatrics unit had a small desk in the center of it with a few toys on it and that constituted our play equipment. But yes, this room is dedicated for children that are well enough to come play and get moving.

We have an amazing group of nurses and pediatric caregivers. There's other caregivers besides nurses but, that will be able to come over and to continue to provide quality care to our patients. But now it'll be in a more comfortable and healing environment, thanks to all that you guys have done. We really appreciate it. We hope to expand. Currently, we do take care of high acuity patients but I think with expansion and Dr. Scoggins' vision that many of our patients and parents won't have to go to other facilities to receive care. They'll be able to stay here in our community, close to family and friends and their needed support systems.

San Juan Regional Medical Center is committed to continuing to provide high quality pediatric care for its patients. During the ribbon cutting ceremony to announce the opening of the center, numerous donors were thanked for their contributions to the center, recognized on a plaque on the brightly-painted walls. Learn more about San Juan Regional Medical Center and the Pediatric Unit by visiting the link on our website. Thank you for watching this edition of the Local News Network. I'm Wendy Graham Settle.

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