SALINAS, Calif-- Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System welcomes the arrival of perinatologist Dr. Amen Ness of Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, an obstetrician specializing in maternal-fetal medicine and high-risk obstetrics.  With more than twenty years of experience, Dr. Ness becomes the first perinatologist to practice locally in Monterey County on a full time basis. 
 
Dr. Ness will practice at the new Perinatal Diagnostic Center, located at 212 San Jose Street in Salinas, which is a part of the newly expanded partnership between Salinas Valley Memorial and Packard Children’s.  The center will serve women who are at risk for maternal, fetal or obstetric complications during pregnancy.  Services include pre-pregnancy consultation on issues such as age, medical concerns or family genetic complications, genetic screening and testing, obstetric imaging services with high level ultrasound using new state-of-the-art equipment with 3D/4D capabilities, and in-patient consultative services for high risk patients.
 
“The arrival of Dr. Ness means a greater level of care is now available in our area,” said Dr. David Kasting, Director of Perinatal and Neonatal Services at Salinas Valley Memorial and also a Clinical Professor at Packard Children’s.  “The expansion of these services is another step forward in our ability to offer outstanding, local care to our patients.”

Before the arrival of Dr. Ness, local obstetricians referred women with high-risk pregnancies to physicians in the Bay Area.  “My practice will allow local doctors to refer locally those cases that require a higher level of expertise,” Dr. Ness said.  Also a Clinical Professor at Packard Children’s, Dr. Ness will live and work in the Salinas community.
 
“We are extremely excited about the skills and experience Dr. Ness is bringing to our obstetrics team,” said Sam Downing, President/CEO of Salinas Valley Memorial.  “The addition of a perinatologist to our staff provides our patients with the very highest level of care before, during, and after pregnancy, close to home.”
 
“The arrival of Dr. Ness raises the level of care, and the type of complicated patients that we can care for, to a much higher level than we have ever been able to do before,” said Edward Ramirez, MD, chair of the OB/GYN department at Salinas Valley Memorial.  “Instead of having to transfer all the highly complicated patients to the Bay Area for continuation of care, we will be able to keep most of those patients in our facility, thereby making it more convenient for those patients and their families.  This will increase the family support these patients receive while in the hospital, many of whom may need to be in the hospital for weeks,” Ramirez said.
 
“This will improve the quality of care for our patients because we will have standards set up by the perinatologist as to how to manage certain aspects of obstetrics,” said Orlando Rodriguez, MD, Chair of Family Practice at Salinas Valley Memorial.
 
The additions of Dr. Ness to the Salinas Valley Memorial medical staff, and the creation of the new Perinatal Diagnostic Center, are just two of the recent developments in mother/baby services at Salinas Valley Memorial.  Other advancements include:

• The appointment of Greg Glasscock, MD, PhD, to Medical Director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, which will soon be a certified Level III unit. The designation means Salinas Valley Memorial will care for the region's most premature and critically ill newborns, which were previously transported outside the area for treatment.  Dr. David Kasting, the former NICU director, is now Director of Perinatal and Neonatal Care. 
  
  
• Our Level II NICU earned certification from Children’s Medical Services, a branch of the California Department of Health Services.
  
  
• We have further developed our longstanding partnership with Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford. Packard Children’s and Salinas Valley Memorial will be equal partners in the ownership and operation of the new Level III NICU and the Perinatal Diagnostic Center. 
  
  
• Thanks to funding from Children’s Miracle Network, the NICU of Salinas Valley Memorial will soon be using a custom-designed, specially equipped ambulance. The ambulance, called the Mother/Infant Critical Care Regional Transport, will be used to carry newborns and pregnant women from outlying hospitals to our NICU.