By Scott Fitzgerald
St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center is literally expanding upward.
President and chief executive officer Rick Wallace, who began his duties here in January 2005, confirmed recently that St. Mary’s soon will begin a building expansion that calls for a three-story structure above the current emergency ward that will provide more space for surgery and intensive care treatment, particularly for cardiac patients.
“We’ve got the concept, but no renderings yet,” Wallace said.
Approval is pending from Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Oklahoma State Department of Health before a public unveiling of the plans and a formal announcement is made hopefully by April 1, Wallace said.
The new structure will provide space to phase in up to 32 more beds.
What’s of particular importance is widening the scope of cardiac services.
St. Mary’s showed a 21 percent growth of patients requiring cardiac services in a single-year time frame. That number is expected to continue growing in correlation with an aging population, Wallace said.
Across town at Integris Bass Baptist Regional Center, no immediate expansion plans are on the drawing board, said administrator Jeffrey Tarrant who was began his new job in August.
The hospital completed a major building expansion a few years earlier with a new emergency ward and women’s center. Bass expanded long term care at its Pavilion on Third Street and offers child and adolescent care at the behavioral health center on S. Van Buren.
Tarrant said he is looking at the Integris health system has a whole including what is offered in Oklahoma City and other Integris locations such as Integris Blackwell Regional Hospital where he worked previously.
“What we are given is a full realm of resources that is looked at locally and directed to what we need. We have lots of resources and a full realm of services. It’s a very good situation for us and the community,” Tarrant said.
One area that both hospitals have collaborated efforts is meeting the challenge of generating more interest in medicine among young people and those seeking careers.
With physician and nursing shortages documented throughout the country, Integris and St. Mary’s share a common problem. They will need to find trained and educated people to provide the necessary critical health care necessary.
“Our school systems are not producing enough students. It’s become a legislative initiative to pay professional instructors more,” Wallace said.
Each hospital pledged recently $25,000 each for a new clinical laboratory that will be on the second floor of Northwestern Oklahoma State University-Enid that will be utilized for pre-med and nursing students.
The laboratory classroom is expected to be ready this spring, Wallace said.
