BELFAST – Work has begun on a new surgical wing for Waldo County General Hospital that, when completed, will cap an expansion and modernization program started more than a decade ago.

“This really is the final major piece for the facility,” WCGH executive director Mark Biscone said Friday.

The $2 million surgical services unit is expected to be completed in March. The new wing will replace two operating suites that were built in 1958 and a third that was added in 1983.

“They’re not only old, but they need to be bigger,” said Biscone. “It’s a space issue.”

Funding for the project was provided by a $1 million challenge grant from the Sunshine Lady Foundation and an expected $1 million in matching contributions from the hospital and local community.

More than $900,000 for the project already has been raised locally, and Biscone said he expected to obtain pledges for the balance within the next four months. The terms of the challenge grant required that the donation be matched by within one year.

“We’ve been just delighted that in the past eight months the community has supported us to the tune of $900,000,” Biscone said. “Once this project is completed, everything in this facility that needed to be addressed will have been. It will be right up to where it should be in terms of space, layout and equipment.”

Already the hospital family has pledged $407,000, the community $182,000 and major donors $315,000 toward the project.

“This is an awesome show of support by a county that is currently facing some economic uncertainties,” Biscone said at the annual incorporators meeting last month. “I am proud that people and businesses here believe in this hospital and recognize how important it is to the future of this county.”

Biscone noted that although the hospital’s existing operating rooms were up to date in terms of equipment, they were unable to conform to the design and space needs of the community. The existing facilities had become increasingly inadequate for the types of complex surgeries performed by the hospital’s teams of surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses and technicians, he said.

Biscone said that because the hospital already had modern operating equipment, the overall cost of the project was greatly reduced because it did not need an upgrade. Other than the new physical plant, only new lighting and air-exchange equipment have to be added to the new wing, he said.

According to WCGH’s annual report, approximately 85 percent of the 3,300 annual surgeries performed at the hospital are done on an outpatient basis. Because modern surgery is much less invasive, most patients return home the same day as their operation. They are able to recover and heal much more quickly, Biscone said.

The new wing will enable the hospital to add an additional 3,500 square feet of new space and renovate 2,500 square feet of the existing surgical department. The plan includes three new operating rooms, two large procedure rooms, a consultation room for physicians and patient member-families, enlarged staff areas and expanded equipment storage areas convenient to the operating suites and procedure rooms.

The new surgical wing is the first major building project at the hospital since a $12 million expansion in 1999 that completely renovated the existing hospital and added an additional 50,000 square feet of space.

Included in that expansion was an upgrade of the Imaging Department, formally known as the Radiology or X-ray department. Biscone said the state of the art department now offers Spiral CT and MRI scanning exams, nuclear medicine, ultrasound, mammography, tomography, fluoroscope exams and mobile PET scanning.

The entire imaging department is now fully digitized, meaning there is no longer any need for film or film processing and that the patient’s image is captured on computer and can be delivered electronically to radiologists, the emergency room or the office of the patient’s physician, he said.

The hospital continues to operate in the black, and prospects for the future appeared to be strong, according to Biscone. He said that by “prudently managing” the hospital’s finances, “it has put us in a strong position to face whatever Augusta or Washington or the economy throws our way.”