Ellsworth hospital to dedicate new wing

ELLSWORTH – It may not be quite yet finished, but Monday is expected to be a big day for a new $10.2 million wing at Maine Coast Memorial Hospital.

That’s when the hospital’s new 30,000-square-foot addition, construction of which is months ahead of schedule, will be formally dedicated.

The facility will contain new operating rooms, a new intensive-care facility and an expanded kitchen and cafeteria. As part of the expansion project, 20,000 additional square feet of existing space is being renovated, including the outpatient surgery, emergency medicine, maternity and reception areas.

The formal dedication of the new wing is scheduled for 2 p.m. Monday, with tours for invited guests to start around 1 p.m. The hospital’s annual meeting is expected to be held outside the new wing at 5 p.m. with a buffet dinner to follow.

Donald Baril, the hospital’s vice president of public relations, said Friday that the near completion of the new wing is “a wonderful thing.”

The new operating rooms will be roughly twice as large as those now in use, which will enable surgeons to use larger, modern-day surgical equipment during operations.

“I feel so good for our caregivers,” Baril said of the expanded facility. “These folks really have performed under battlelike conditions.”

It is hoped that surgeries in the new operating rooms will start Nov. 1, Baril said, though not all work associated with the expansion will be done at that time. He said the remaining work, such as opening walls to connect the new facility into the existing one, likely will take until the beginning of next year to complete.

Baril said the addition initially was not projected to be complete until next April.

“Our surgeons are thrilled,” he said.

Gov. John Baldacci is expected to attend Monday’s dedication and has asked to address the hospital’s board of trustees, according to Baril. The hospital also is expected to release its annual report on Monday, he said.

The hospital has raised $5.5 million for the expansion project through a public capital campaign, with the additional money being raised through other means. As part of the hospital’s overall expansion plans, a 10,000-square-foot primary care facility recently has been built in Ellsworth on Resort Way and a $600,000 magnetic-resonance imager has been added to the hospital’s primary Union Street campus.

The new wing, construction of which started in the summer of 2003, marks the first construction project at the hospital in 15 years. The first part of the hospital was built in 1956.