PANAMA CITY — Angie Harwood cradled her 13-month-old daughter, Joyanna, as she recovered from a respiratory virus in the region’s only pediatric intensive care unit on Monday.
Had Joyanna fallen ill two weeks earlier, the Panama City residents would have found themselves much farther from home.
Gulf Coast Regional Medical Center opened the new four-bed pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) last week, offering care for infants, children and adolescents who become critically ill or injured. Before the unit opened, children requiring intensive care were sent to hospitals in Pensacola, Gainesville, Jacksonville or Montgomery, Ala., for treatment.
Harwood, a mother of eight, said the new unit has been a blessing for her family.
“I can’t imagine if we would have had to go to Pensacola,” said Harwood, who noted Joyanna’s progress under the PICU’s more frequent monitoring. “It’s a huge blessing to be here. We’re just very happy with the service we’ve been provided and the care.”
The PICU is part of the hospital’s new 42-bed critical care wing that opened in October. The wing also includes a 20-bed adult intensive care unit and an 18-bed neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). This spring, six of the NICU beds will move from providing Level II to Level III care, the most advanced neonatal care available for newborns with extreme prematurity or critical illness.
PICU Medical Director Reynaldo dela Rosa said the unit sees patients with mostly life-threatening conditions like severe infection, respiratory failure, trauma, poisoning and extensive surgery recovery.
“Before this was here, the kids (didn’t) stay here in the area; they were transferred to bigger hospitals … sometimes two-to-three hours away,” dela Rosa said. “This ICU will be beneficial for the community because the families don’t have to travel such a far distance to get the care that they need.”