Groundbreaking expected early 2012
The N.C. Department of Health Service Regulation approved a certificate of need (CON) Friday, Sept. 9 for a proposed six-bed replacement facility on the St. Luke’s Hospital campus in Columbus.
Hospital officials originally expected the approval to come sometime before Nov. 29, with plans to have designs finalized by then.
Dr. Brian Rosenberg of Rosenberg Bone and Joint said hospital board of trustee members were thrilled to get good news about the CON approval last week.
“St. Luke’s Hospital’s entire orthopedic team is very excited about the building plans our board has worked hard to implement. We were notified it would be late November before we had an answer, so it’s terrific that we are able to move forward,” Rosenberg said. “This could not have happened without advocacy and support from our patients, our medical staff, the board, our foundation and the community.”
St. Luke’s Hospital CEO Ken Shull said the early approval would not change the overall timeline.
“We already had the design of the facility on the fast track and it will still take them until the end of November to have the design and documents ready for us to put our project out for bid,” Shull said.
Shull said the hospital expects to break ground by February 2012, with construction completed by January 2013.
The new six-bed wing will feature 280-square-foot patient rooms, which will be more than twice the size of the current 100 to 120 square-foot rooms filling most of the rest of St. Luke’s wings.
Hospital spokesperson Kathy Woodham said the new wing will focus on the increasing number of orthopedic patients coming through the hospital with the addition in 2004 of Rosenberg Bone and Joint.
Woodham said those types of procedures have increased 50 percent in seven years. The average knee patient will spend two to four days recovering, she said.
Officials call this orthopedic patient wing Phase I and said they have intentions to eventually replace the 40-year-old facility. Phase I connects the new wing to the administrative hallway.
The 15,000-square-foot addition is projected to cost $5.6 million. St. Luke’s Hospital Foundation has raised $1 million toward the project, with expectations of raising another $1 million. Additional funds will be raised through bank financing.