$664M North Tower opens at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla

Lauren Dehasque and newborn Freja joined by dad Thibaud were the first patients at North Tower Photo courtesy of Scripps Healthcare The first cries of a newborn echoed through the new North Tower at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla Sunday morning marking both a personal milestone and a historic one for the hospital Lauren Dehasque of Rancho Santa Fe accompanied by her husband Thibaud was the first individual to move into the new million facility giving birth to daughter Freja shortly after settling into a spacious seventh-floor room with sweeping mountain views It s just so bright and beautiful Lauren noted of the eight-story inpatient building which includes comprehensive mother-baby services advanced instrument operating rooms and private recipient rooms The -square-foot North Tower officially opened its doors Sunday after nearly a decade of planning and construction representatives mentioned Over a four-hour period beginning at a m a coordinated band of doctors nurses and technicians transferred patients including newborns and expectant mothers from the hospital s original Browning Building into the new state-of-the-art tower via enclosed passageways With this expansion Scripps La Jolla now has licensed inpatient beds including in the North Tower as well as an additional neonatal intensive care beds licensed to Rady Children s Hospital San Diego Mother-baby services span three floors of the new facility featuring private labor and delivery rooms including five antepartum rooms two cesarean section operating rooms NICU beds and postpartum beds Six of the labor rooms include large soaking tubs to assistance pain management during labor and a nursery and boutique on the postpartum floor provide information and amenities to patronage new mothers Patients also benefit from wireless vital sign monitoring allowing them to move about freely without being tethered to machines About babies are delivered at Scripps La Jolla each year Ronald Salzetti M D department chair of obstetrics and gynecology for Scripps Clinic The opening of the North Tower ensures that those infants and their mothers will continue to receive the very best care feasible in a place that was built with the future in mind allowing for services and tool to evolve as medicine continues to advance