New hospital in Brunswick to open today

BRUNSWICK – Brunswick is about to open one hospital and close two old ones.

The new $32 million, 100-bed Mid Coast Hospital will open today. At the same time, Mid Coast’s original facilities – on Washington Street in Bath and Baribeau Drive in Brunswick – will shut their doors.

“It will be sad to see the Bath hospital go, but the new hospital is going to be great,” said Pam Gray, a Bath resident who was born at the Bath hospital in 1952. Her mother, father, sister and two brothers also were born there. “From everything, I’ve heard and seen they’ve done a good job with the new hospital.”

For the last year, Mid Coast Hospital has been planning to move its staff, patients and equipment into the new facility at Cook’s Corner. It will be the second new hospital to open in Maine this year; another opened in Bridgton this fall.

The new facility officially opens at 6 a.m. today. Officials estimate that as many as 70 patients will be moved by ambulance from Baribeau Drive to Cook’s Corner.

The former Bath hospital, which has operated in recent months as a walk-in urgent care center, will be converted into a community college. The Baribeau Drive facility will be transformed into a center offering a broad range of services to the area’s elderly residents.