Akron Children’s Youngest Patients Move Into New Nicu

Ronan Skolosh took a 600-foot trip Tuesday morning into his spacious temporary home.His brand-new pad features a large window with a picturesque view of downtown Akron, a private bathroom, space for his family to crash — and no more roommates.Ronan was among 39 critically ill newborns transported Tuesday from Akron Children’s Hospital’s old neonatal intensive care unit to the new NICU in the Kay Jewelers Pavilion.The seven-story, $180 million addition officially opened Tuesday morning, when the first-floor new emergency department and outpatient surgery center on the third floor also began seeing patients.Staff planned and practiced for months to transfer the hospital’s tiniest patients to the 75-bed, all-private NICU on the sixth and seventh floors of the addition.“It’s kind of ‘all hands on deck,’ ” said Christine Young, director of nursing for neonatal services at Children’s.Each baby was accompanied on the move by a registered nurse, a respiratory therapist and an emergency medical technician-paramedic from the hospital’s transport team — the same experts who transfer patients to Children’s via ambulance and medical helicopter.