By VICKI URBANIK

The ambulance clearly is no ordinary rig: It’s lavendar in color, it proclaims “Special Delivery,” and it depicts a large hand holding a tiny foot.

Years in the making, the county hospital Porter now has an ambulance dedicated solely to its Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The ambulance was unveiled at the hospital board meeting last week.

Suzette Mahneke, the hospital’s vice-president of patient services, said the dedicated ambulance has been the dream of the NICU for about 15 years. “Today that dream comes true,” she said.

The ambulance will be used to transport babies in need of neonatal intensive care to or from Porter, one of only two hospitals in Northwest Indiana with a NICU. So far this year, Porter has transported 38 babies, who typically range in age from 28 to 40 weeks of age, Mahneke said.

The success of the NICU babies depends on the ability to deploy physicians, nurses and respiratory therapists rapidly to the babies in need. “The immediacy of our deployment makes the critical difference,” she said.

The NICU ambulance will resolve a problem that has occurred a few times, when babies are in need of transport but all other ambulances are needed in other emergencies. Though there haven’t been that many such occurrences, it has happened, said Porter Emergency Medical Services Director Gary Atherton.

“We’ve been challenged by that for a number of years,” he said.

Mahneke said the NICU used funds that had been set aside for education to retrofit an existing but unused ambulance in the EMS fleet. The cost was about $16,000, far lower than what it would cost to buy a new ambulance.

In the future, Porter hopes to be able to use the ambulance to transport the new mothers as well, Mahneke said, since in some cases, the need for the NICU is clear even before the woman gives birth.

Elaine Merkel, director of the NICU, corrected the notion that the NICU is a money-losing service at the hospital. The NICU has actually enjoyed a small profit margin, she said. “We hold our own,” she said.

Atherton said the NICU ambulance still needs to pass a state inspection. It is hoped that within the month, the ambulance will be put into service. He noted that state regulations require that ambulances have an EMT on board. Porter may have to apply for a waiver, since the NICU is a specialized area of care and an NICU nurse will be on board to provide that care.

As he has done before, Porter President and CEO Ron Winger emphasized the importance of the NICU as part of the county hospital’s mission. Concerns about the fate of the NICU have been raised off and on in the past; Winger noted that when the former NICU medical director resigned last year, some questioned if Porter planned to close the unit. Those concerns were unfounded, he said. “There was no question in our mind what was going to happen to the NICU,” he said.

While he commended the former NICU medical director, Winger also lauded Porter’s relationship with the Renaissance Medical Group based in Oak Lawn, Ill. Renaissance is now providing physicians round-the-clock at the NICU, with the doctors alternating when they are on-call, living in apartments close to the hospital in intervals.

“Really, the level of our NICU has improved dramatically,” Winger said of the 24-7 physician availability.

In a separate but related matter, it was announced at the board meeting that NICU Medical Director Dr. Thomas Myers and NICU nurse Linda George have recently won awards from the March of Dimes for their NICU work.

Board Complaint

Julie Wheeland of the Porter Watch group took the hospital board to task Thursday for the way in which her request for records involving Porter Health Services has been handled.

PHS is a hospital-owned organization composed of two physician groups, one at the Chesterton Medical Campus and one at the Portage Hospital Campus. Wheeland has requested contracts and other information related to PHS, but has been turned down. Last month, she publicly called on the hospital board to decide if it stands by the hospital attorney’s position that the records do not need to be released because PHS is a separate, not-for-profit organization.

Wheeland said that she received an email last week from Shelley Koltnow, vice president of corporate compliance, basically reiterating that position. Wheeland told the board that she was “very disappointed” in how her request was handled, since she thought the board would discuss the issue instead of having the hospital administration decide the matter. The board’s entire decision-making on this topic “has been cut out from under you,” she said.

Wheeland said she intends to appeal to the Indiana Public Access Counselor to get the PHS records released.

Posted 11/22/2005