Physician assistant and perfusionist Ron Eller describes to Marvin Marshall, left, and Emma Lee Marshall how some of the equipment in the new cardiovascular intensive care unit of River Region Medical Center works Wednesday.(Jon Giffin The Vicksburg Post)

[10/7/04]The new addition at River Region Medical Center was built to help more patients like Jane Cohn, who underwent surgery at the hospital almost exactly a year ago.

Cohn, who is in her 80s, drove to Jackson for a different heart procedure two years before her double-bypass operation here last October. Her follow-up care was in the 18-month-old hospital’s often-crowded general intensive care unit. Future heart patients will be cared for in a $7.6 million specialized cardiac intensive care unit for which the ribbon was cut Wednesday night.

“In this day and time, it’s pretty much state-of-the-art,” said Dr. Edward Crocker, heart and chest surgeon.

The $123 million hospital opened in February 2002 with a promise to add more services by closing and consolidating two other hospitals Vicksburg Medical and ParkView. Design and construction included advanced surgical suites needed for heart surgery. Dr. Crocker and a support staff were recruited and the first heart operation took place in March 2003.

Since then, about 150 patients have undergone open-heart surgery here and over 350 others have undergone other forms of heart operations.

“That’s over 500 patients who have been able to stay here in Vicksburg and get care,” River Region CEO Phillip Clendenin said.

The ribbon cutting of the unit, called the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit, was attended by about 150 people invited through the Chamber of Commerce and Cohn and other former patients toured the new space. It will provide 14 beds and will be put into use in 15 to 30 days, Clendenin said.

The existing ICU has 16 beds and demand for that space has risen with the addition of heart procedures here, creating the need for the new unit, hospital spokesman Diane Gawronski said.

Amenities include more space for families. “We want a spouse or next-of-kin to be able to stay” with each patient who is recovering from a heart procedure, and the new unit with its larger rooms provides more room for that to happen more comfortably, Clendenin said.

Cohn, who said she wanted her husband by her side, said families welcome the new accommodations. “I have every confidence in Dr. Crocker,” she said. “He was so wonderful. This was the place to come.”

The new ICU means more jobs, Clendenin said. Also, Crocker and his staff are leading the way in Mississippi in a new advance that allows surgery to remove the blood vessels necessary for grafting in heart-bypass operations in some patients using smaller incisions than previously possible, the hospital has announced.

Also on display Wednesday was the blood-pump machine used by Crocker and his team in the operating room. Physician assistant and perfusionist Ron Eller said the machine, which cost about $180,000, incorporates advanced features such as simulation of a human heart’s pulse while a patient is undergoing surgery.

At the ribbon-cutting, River Region’s Dr. Paul Pierce reflected on the advances that have been made in Vicksburg health care during his years of practice.

“It’s startling to me the progress that has been made just in the last eight years,” he said, listing several types of specialties in which locally practicing doctors have been added during that time.

Pierce also cited examples of how quickly, often within four days, patients are able to leave the hospital after heart procedures.

John Byram, 62, of Vicksburg was another of the RRMC heart patients getting a peek. He said he’d had quadruple-bypass surgery on March 16. “I haven’t felt this good in 25 to 30 years,” he said.

The addition took about a year to build. It is the first to the building on U.S. 61 North which opened with 215 beds.