Millinocket Regional Health center in Maine embarks on a $17 million, 14-month building improve to make bigger and modernize its emergency division, aiming to improve healthcare get admission to for citizens and vacationers. Federal grants and group enhance assist investment. Upgrades to incorporate extra remedy rooms, advanced affected person care, and an infection keep watch over measures.
Shutterstock picture/Panchenko Vladimir
The approaching 12 months is about to be one among reinvention for the Millinocket Regional Health center (MRH) in Maine, as its officers held a groundbreaking on Dec. 31 to suggest the beginning in their latest building mission.
The numerous milestone marks the start of a transformative $17 million mission that may improve healthcare get admission to and high quality for the citizens of the Katahdin Area of Maine and greater than 250,000 vacationers that seek advice from the area yearly, in line with a MRH information unencumber.
Over the following 14 months, A/Z Corp., a Connecticut contractor, can be renovating the clinic’s primary front and emergency division.
“At this time, we’ve got 5 running bays, and we’ve got enough space within the hallways for 3 or 4 extra sufferers,” defined Robert Peterson, MRH’s leader government officer of MRH, in talking with WABI-TV in within reach Bangor. “However the brand new ER may have 10 running bays, all a lot greater than the bays we’ve got now, [and] all non-public, and each and every room may also be transformed to both unfavorable or certain air power to give protection to our sufferers and our body of workers from an infection.”
Greater than 80 p.c of the mission’s value is roofed via federal grants and state approval, with handiest round $2 million extra to boost, he mentioned.
This impactful capital mission was once made imaginable via intensive grant investment and enhance from the Penobscot County Commissioners, Maine’s two U.S. Senators Susan Collins (R) and Angus King (I), in addition to the beneficiant enhance of people.
Peterson defined that securing this investment is crucial to verify sufferers obtain probably the greatest care, even in rural communities like Millinocket.
“We’re 60 miles clear of Houlton Health center and every other 40 miles-plus from Penobscot Valley,” he added. “If a affected person has a trauma state of affairs right here as regards to the clinic, that is too a ways for them to trip. They won’t make it.
“We do not need to be a free-standing emergency division. We do not need to be Band-Support station,” Peterson persisted. “We need to be a clinic that may meet the desires of any affected person that comes in this campus or involves us by the use of ambulance.”
No longer handiest will the renovation get advantages the clinic, Peterson famous, however he hopes that it sends the message of an financial upturn for Millinocket and the group’s willpower to making an investment of their the city after a lot of house mill closures.
In early December, Millinocket Regional won ultimate approval from the commissioner of the Maine Division of Well being and Human Services and products to transport ahead with the growth and renovation effort.
The brand new MRH improve will be offering:
- An enhanced affected person enjoy as the brand new Emergency Division will supply a extra at ease and environment friendly area with up to date amenities, greater capability and decreased wait occasions for other people desiring care.
- Specialised remedy rooms, together with devoted trauma, cardiac and behavioral well being spaces, making sure optimum deal with a much wider vary of sufferers.
- A contemporary design that now not handiest will incorporate rooms to protect towards sufferers and body of workers contracting airborne pathogens, however a decontamination room, and a bigger ambulance front to control emergencies extra safely and successfully.
ED Services and products to Proceed All over Development
MRH is dedicated to offering outstanding healthcare products and services to the Millinocket group and past, Peterson famous, and the clinic’s new Emergency Division is a testomony to bettering the well being and well-being of sufferers.
“That is an exhilarating tournament within the wealthy historical past of MRH,” he defined within the information unencumber. “We’re construction a modernized facility in a position to assembly the desires of the communities we serve for many years to return. It’s an honor and a privilege to be a part of one thing this significant and important to the power of the Katahdin area.”
The mission can be finished in two levels.
The primary will come with the development of a brand new primary front and the growth of the ED. All over that point, emergency products and services will proceed to be delivered within the present ED till the brand new building is entire.
As soon as the paintings is completed, emergency operations will then transfer into the brand new area, the upgraded primary front will open, and Section Two — the renovation of the present emergency division — will start. Upon its crowning glory, the 2 sections can be joined in combination as a unmarried trendy unit, in line with MRH officers.
Peterson said that the following 12 months is not going to come with out its demanding situations to parking and get admission to however believes the finished mission can be definitely worth the transient inconveniences.
All over building, sufferers will proceed to have get admission to to the clinic campus by the use of Poplar, Somerset, and Spruce Streets; alternatively, the principle front to the clinic construction can be quickly closed. Guests and sufferers getting access to the ED, laboratory and diagnostic imaging must use the North front off Spruce Boulevard. Transparent signage can be posted all over the campus to help with wayfinding.
