In Irkutsk, after major renovation, the maternity hospital of the aircraft plant medical unit, which had been closed for more than a year and was effectively rebuilt from scratch, is again preparing to receive mothers. Now it has single and double rooms with private bathrooms, individual delivery rooms, an isolation ward for women with infections, and modern equipment for operating rooms and newborn intensive care. The city spent 110 million rubles on the renovation, and another 11 million on equipment.

For more than a year, women in labor from Second Irkutsk and Novo-Lenino were taken to maternity hospitals in other districts of the city. All this time, in the maternity ward of the aircraft plant medical unit, it was not doctors who were working, but builders.
This maternity hospital was on the verge of closure and did not meet any sanitary standards or requirements. The building is 35 years old, and this is the first time it has undergone major repairs. The builders redesigned the layout of the premises. As before the reconstruction, forty women will be able to stay here at the same time, but the number of wards has doubled. Instead of three- and four-bed rooms, there are now single and double rooms with separate bathrooms. Instead of shared delivery rooms, there are individual ones. The maternity hospital was expanded by adding two extra floors, where the gynecology department and women’s consultation clinic used to be located.
- We have made a boxed-in unit, this is a unit for women with infections; there was no such possibility before. Here there is its own delivery room and separate luxury wards, says Oksana Kozhevnikova, acting deputy chief physician of the maternity hospital of the IAPO medical unit.
The electrical wiring and ventilation system were replaced, and antibacterial filters were installed. The major renovation cost the city treasury 110 million rubles. Another 11 million rubles were spent on modern medical equipment. They tried to completely update the equipment for both operating rooms and the neonatal intensive care and pregnancy pathology departments.
Next in line is the reconstruction and expansion of another maternity facility - the city perinatal center on Bograd Street.
- We are developing project documentation for the reconstruction of the perinatal center, and if the funding situation is favorable, then starting in 2010 we plan to begin the work, says Irkutsk Mayor Vladimir Yakubovsky.
On Monday, the first mothers are expected at this renovated maternity hospital. And the birth of little Irkutsk residents.