Pella Regional Health Center recently began construction of a state-of-the-art C-Section operating room within its birthing center to help meet the growing demand for obstetrics services in the area.

Over the past 20 years, there has been a steady decrease in the number obstetric (OB) units across the state of Iowa. Today, over half of Iowa’s 99 counties do not have OB units, and eight of those counties are directly in, or adjacent to, areas served by Pella Regional.

Despite these trends, Pella Regional has continued investing in care for pregnant women and their families. Pella Regional has the largest number of births for any critical access hospital in the state, delivering 579 babies in 2022 and 544 already in 2023, with more than 600 expected by year-end.

In 2017, the new Family Birthing Center was completed at the hospital. As part of that project, the shell of a future operating room to accommodate C-sections and other pregnancy related surgeries was built. Now, Pella Regional has started construction on the final phase of that project, which will complete the operating room. A large portion of the project will be paid using funds donated through the Pella Regional Health Center Foundation.

“We have such generous donors,” says Jenny Hesseltine, Foundation Coordinator at Pella Regional. “I am grateful for the opportunity to showcase what the hard earned dollars of our donors can accomplish when stewarded well. The generosity of the community, paired with the foresight of the organization’s leaders in 2017, makes this a project in which we can all take a great deal of pride. It puts us in a great position of simply being able to say ‘Thank you’ in the midst of a big capital project rather than needing to seek specific donations for the completion of the OB operating suite.”

The addition of a dedicated operating room for C-sections is vital for the safety of both pregnant women as well as other hospital patients. Because of the urgent and often unplanned nature of C-sections, these operations may be delayed or disrupt other planned surgeries at the hospital. A dedicated operating room within the birthing unit will create a safe and more comfortable environment for pregnant women and their families, as well as minimizing disruptions to other operations at Pella Regional.

Construction is expected to last five months, with the new space being usable by patients and staff in mid-spring. Pella Regional does not anticipate any disruption to current services during construction.