Hospital Emergency Department Entrance Shifts to North Side

January 5, 2008

By PHYLISS BOATWRIGHT
C-T Staff Writer

The entrance to Person Memorial Hospital’s Emergency Department has been moved – back to it original location at the north entrance to the hospital. The south entrance, which had been the main point of entry while work on the north side of the hospital was underway, is now blocked as work on the PMH renovation and expansion project continues.

Glen Blalock, the hospital’s maintenance director, said the south entrance had been blocked since Dec.4, but that some people were still trying to use it to get to the ED. The ED can be accessed by going in from the south, Blalock said, but drivers must got out of their way, behind oxygen tanks and a small building, to complete the circle that leads to the ED entrance. In an emergency, it would be safer to use the newly reopened north entrance, he emphasized. He said the individuals going to the emergency department should use the north entrance until August or September 2008, while work on expansion of the department continues.

Blalock said that work on the ED expansion had “come out of the ground” in recent weeks and there were “several months of work” ahead for crews. Once the expansion work is done, Blalock said, renovation on the existing ED would begin. Blalock said the hospital was “probably three-fourths of the way through” the entire renovation and expansion project that began in January of 2005. The project was expected to take three years to complete. When it began, hospital officials said the $14 million expansion and renovation project would allow Person Memorial to better serve the community’s health needs and recruit more health care providers to the community.

The project includes expansion of the PMH surgical suite and emergency department as well as a private family waiting room and additional recovery rooms added to the surgical suite and an urgent care clinic that will offer services in addition to the current emergency room services.

The project will also expand rehabilitation services and respiratory care services. Specialty clinics have been moved to the first floor of the hospital annex. The intensive care unit at the hospital will also be renovated, making all six beds private.

The hospital was originally built in 1950. The current project is the first significant upgrade to the facility since1989.

Reprinted with permission from
The Courier=Times