BURBANK : Hospital Expanding Neonatal Center

St. Joseph’s Medical Center has begun an expansion of its neonatal center from six to 20 beds, allowing the hospital to accept cases from area hospitals unequipped for treating premature and sick babies, hospital officials said Tuesday.

“We are at 100% occupancy the majority of time and we are unable to help the hospitals in our community who do not have this level of care,” said Linda Coale, the hospital’s division director for specialty units. “We’ve been this way for about a year and half.”

The hospital now can only take care of six premature or sick babies at a time. Of 2,500 births at St. Joseph’s each year, about 15% need neonatal care, Coale said.

The neonatal unit opened in 1987 at St. Joseph’s. The hospital had also taken babies transferred from Glendale Memorial Hospital and Verdugo Hills Hospital, both in Glendale, until 1991. With the expansion, St. Joseph’s hopes to resume accepting transfers from other local hospitals.

“It’s nice for the family to keep transfers within the community,” Coale said. St. Joseph’s may be able to accept babies as far as the Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia, which does not have neonatal service, Coale said.

Expansion of the neonatal unit on the hospital’s fifth floor, which began April 21, is expected to be completed by the end of the year, Coale said.

Neonatal care is used for babies born as many as 16 weeks premature or for full-term babies born with respiratory or blood-sugar problems or other birth defects. The average length of stay is 15 days for a premature baby and five days for a full-term baby.