NEW JOBS ARISE WITH HOSPITAL EXPANSION; INCREASING DEMAND PROMPTS 50 HIRINGS.

Byline: Jim Skeen / Daily News Staff Writer

In its biggest hiring effort in a decade, Antelope Valley Hospital has added 50 workers over the past month and plans to add 100 more by January.

The hiring boom is prompted by a series of projects at the hospital, including adding a skilled nursing facility, a pediatric intensive care unit and enlarging the emergency room. The expansion work will continue through 1998.

``We have a busy summer with a high census and our expansion programs are on schedule,'' said Robert Harenski, chief executive officer. ``We need to gear up to meet the staffing demands that those programs will create.''

The hospital is looking for people as far away as Bakersfield and Los Angeles to fill a variety of nursing positions and clinical, business office and support services staff.

The various expansion projects are prompted by a variety of reasons, said hospital spokesman Gary Cothran. The $760,000, five-bed pediatric intensive care unit is being added because there is no such facility in the Antelope Valley.

The hospital's emergency room is being expanded because of demand. The number of patient visits climbed from 60,565 in 1994 to 65,555 this year.

``The emergency room is being expanded because we're bursting at the seams,'' Cothran said. ``We're one of the busiest emergency rooms in all of Los Angeles County.''

Hospital officials said they began their expansion plans before the closure of Desert Palms Community Hospital, which shut its doors in March 1996.

The hospital's plan to expand the emergency room includes increasing the waiting area from 796 square feet to 2,600 square feet and increasing the number of exam and treatment rooms from 17 to 26.