County’s 2nd Neonatal Unit Opens : Health: But head of Ventura intensive-care nursery criticizes Thousand Oaks center as a duplication of services.

Sick and prematurely born babies from eastern Ventura County will no longer have to travel to Ventura or the San Fernando Valley for medical care, doctors said Thursday, celebrating the opening of a neonatal intensive-care unit at Los Robles Regional Medical Center in Thousand Oaks.

“It’s a real step up in the level of care that is available to newborns in eastern Ventura County,” said Dr. Paul Hinkes, director of the new unit.

But the medical director of the county’s only other neonatal intensive-care nursery criticized the Los Robles addition.

“It’s really wasting a lot of resources, duplicating services that are already in existence,” said Dr. David Kasting, head of the neonatal unit at Ventura County Medical Center in Ventura.

Hinkes defended the nursery, saying it is medically needed regardless of costs that can run to $100,000 per bed.

“Transferring these babies is not in their best interest,” Hinkes said. “There’s always a risk in transferring a sick baby.”

If economics were the only concern, Hinkes said, the cheapest thing to do would be to build one 200-bed intensive-care unit in Downtown Los Angeles for every sick baby in Southern California.

Los Robles’ new $4-million Women and Children’s Pavilion includes remodeled labor, delivery and recovery rooms as well as the 10-bed intensive-care unit.

Dr. Raymond Poliakin, chief of obstetrics, said the renovation “makes the hospital look less like a hospital or a factory and much more like a caring environment.”

“It’s wonderful,” Poliakin said. He said between 100 and 120 babies are delivered at the hospital each month and that he expects those numbers to increase by at least one-third with the opening of the pavilion.

One new delivery in the new unit will be the baby of Cindy Petrak, a clinical nurse in the existing Los Robles maternity ward.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Petrak said.

Groups of doctors and nurses cycled through the hospital’s plum-colored pavilion late Thursday as it was officially opened to hospital staff members. The public opening is scheduled Saturday from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.

While Kasting of the county hospital questioned the wisdom of installing a neonatal intensive-care unit at Los Robles, he and county hospital Administrator Pierre Durand both said they believed the new competition would draw few patients from their hospital’s busy 30-bed intensive-care nursery.

Durand even praised Los Robles’ move, saying it will result in more convenient service for patients in Thousand Oaks.

Doctors said instead of going to the county hospital in Ventura, many east county patients now go to American Medical International’s Tarzana Regional Medical Center.

The delivery rooms have been used for nearly two months, Poliakin said. The neonatal intensive-care unit is finished but will not have its first patient until January, when the entire pavilion is completed.

For years, Ventura County’s eight hospitals have engaged in a fierce competition for patients, threatening the survival of the smallest. At the same time, critics have maintained that medical costs have soared because hospitals purchase the same expensive equipment and duplicate services.