The Faculty Hospital Brno will have a new maternity ward in three years

Brno - The new maternity hospital at the Faculty Hospital in Brno will be used by mothers giving birth in 2012. At that time, a new pavilion worth 1.3 billion crowns in Brno-Bohunice is to be completed and equipped. With the opening of the new maternity hospital, operations at the historic maternity hospital at Obilní trh in the center of Brno, which has been in operation for over 120 years and where the first test-tube baby in Czechoslovakia was born 27 years ago, will come to an end. The maternity clinic will also no longer be fragmented - today, in addition to Obilní trh, it partially operates in Brno-Bohunice, which brings complications, said director Roman Kraus to reporters today.
    The two clinic buildings are six kilometers apart. Blood substitutes, medications, and meals must be transported between the two facilities, and the hospital needs to have many devices at both locations, even though one apparatus would suffice otherwise. "We are dealing with situations where doctors are transported from one part of the clinic to another with police assistance, because the city center is currently impassable," described the current situation Kraus.
    The new building is to be constructed in 2011. It will have 150 beds, 15 less than the clinic has today. According to the clinic's chief, Pavel Ventruba, this is in line with the current trend of reducing the length of hospital stays after operations and births. While mothers used to stay in the hospital for an average of five days, today there is a tendency to shorten the period from four to three days. Thus, fewer beds are needed. However, there should be space in the building for the development of new medical fields.
    The construction of the new maternity hospital will be predominantly funded by state resources; according to Deputy Health Minister Marek Šnajdr, the money will come from a privatization account, where profits from the sale of state property and income from dividends from state-owned companies are deposited. The hospital currently has an architectural study for the construction. This year, architects are expected to design the building, and preparatory work on the land will also begin, said Kraus.