Work delayed to to weather, changes
The opening of the new Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital emergency
room has been delayed again, as hospital officials now expect it to
open by late October, said Hazel Hawkins’ head of marketing and
public relations Frankie Arballo.
Work delayed to to weather, changes
The opening of the new Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital emergency room has been delayed again, as hospital officials now expect it to open by late October, said Hazel Hawkins’ head of marketing and public relations Frankie Arballo.
In the original plans, the new E.R. was supposed to open in December but because of rain and wet weather, construction was postponed to the spring. The second delay was because of small changes to the plans.
“A lot of different small things needed to be changed,” she said. “With a project of this magnitude – things change.”
But nothing in the original plans will be removed from the finished building, Arballo said.
“Everything is as originally planned,” she said.
Workers are in the finishing stages of construction, Arballo said. They are installing the flooring and ceiling and will finish up the electrical engineering in the upcoming weeks.
And on July 19, the entrance to the current E.R. will be temporarily moved to the Radiology Department as construction continues.
Afterward, it will take at least three weeks to move all of the supplies and equipment from the old E.R. to the new building. Donations from the Hazel Hawkins Hospitals Foundation, totaling $500,000, will go to purchasing new equipment for the E.R.
An additional donation of $50,000 from the Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital Auxiliary will go to furnishing the E.R.’s waiting room and building.
Both donors are boards made up of hospital volunteers and people in the community.
“We are very fortunate to have people in this community who are willing to donate money to the hospital,” Arballo said.
When the E.R.’s construction is finished, workers will start to break ground on the Women’s Center. The initial plan is to begin in the spring of next year.
“We won’t do anything, though, until the construction for the E.R. is finished and the plans are finalized,” Arballo said.
The final architectural plans for Women’s Center are expected to be completed in the early fall.
Once the construction starts, it should take nearly 18 months to complete.
The third portion of the hospital’s expansion, the Support Services Building, was completed in mid-June, when the second floor was completely occupied.
The first and third floors were completed earlier in the year.
The funding for the hospital’s expansion projects was approved in May 2005, when county voters passed the $32 million Measure L.
The new 14,000-square-foot E.R. is double the size of the existing E.R. and will consist of 18 beds including seven private treatment rooms, three trauma bays, four negative pressure treatment rooms and a four-bed “fast track” area to speed up service for those with less urgent matters, according to the hospital’s website.
Construction for the building started in March 2008.
The new building will have the capacity to serve 30,000 patients per year.
