WESTLAKE VILLAGE : Maternity Ward Opens Doors to Former Patients

Candace Curts cast a skeptical eye around the nurses’ locker room in the maternity ward of Westlake Medical Center in Westlake Village.

“I can’t imagine me being born in this room,” she said. “I just can’t picture it.”

The room had changed since her mother, Donna Curts of Thousand Oaks, gave birth to Candace there 11 years ago. The bed had been replaced with a chair and couch and lockers now line a wall.

Candace said she had been curious to see her birthplace before Westlake’s maternity ward closed for good. “I didn’t know which room it was, and I wanted to see what it looked like,” she said.

Curiosity and nostalgia brought more than 300 people to the ward Sunday afternoon, hours after the unit officially closed for business. They came to celebrate its 23-year history, tour the small, homey rooms where they labored and delivered their children and visit the nurses who helped them through it all.

The maternity unit was closed to avoid duplication of services, after the parent company of Los Robles Regional Medical Center purchased Westlake this summer.

Eleanor Kalish, a nurse who supervises the ward, said the reunion of babies born at the hospital was planned to let children see where their lives began.

“Kids are always asking, ‘Mommy, where was I born?”’ she said. “Since it was closing, we figured this was the chance to have kids come by and see where they were born.”

The ward’s last baby had been born the night before, a seven-pound boy delivered at 9:53 p.m. Saturday.

Seven-month-old Natalie Gula of Thousand Oaks will probably not remember her return Sunday to her birthplace, so her mother, Denise Gula brought a video camera to capture the scene.

Gula had already come back several times to thank the nurses for their help during her delivery, she said.

“Especially Eleanor--being a first-time mother, you’re very apprehensive, and . . . she was the one who was crucial to my calmness and ability to cope.”

Natalie, meanwhile, was twisting Kalish’s ID badge, calmly ignoring the crush of parents and children around her.

“I’m going to be sad it’s closing, because it was such a warm, affectionate place,” Gula said.