Two major renovation projects are underway at Salem Township Hospital.
Hospital President Alex Nazarian provided an update following Wednesday’s hospital board meeting.
“This will take about 4 months to complete for the parking lot and then we have until December 31st to finish the main clinical areas.”
Until the parking lot reconstruction is complete, the front entrance to the hospital is closed and everyone should enter through the emergency room. Nazarian says some extra work has had to be completed in the renovation of the A wing to doctor’s office facilities.
“We discovered that the floor is U-shaped, so the central area is lower than the edges. So right now we are flattening the whole place and then we will start to installing the plumbing, HVAC and electrical before we start putting the walls up.”
Nazarian says he’s confident the contractors can meet the scheduled deadlines. He notes after the initial cost of both projects was set at $5.5-million, the estimated costs jumped to more than $6-million dollars. Nazarian says through value engineering the extra costs were able to be trimmed back to the original amount.
Nazarian announced the hospital is close to getting a second surgeon who is from the Paducah, Kentucky area. He hopes the new surgeon is in place within the next six months.
“Right now we have Dr. Claffey, his schedule is full with colonoscopies and EGB’s and hernial repairs that he specializes in. He doesn’t have the bandwidth to accept other patients, so we need another surgeon. There is a lot of demand out there and we are known for the quality of our services.”
Nazarian also announced the emergency room will begin stocking rabies vaccine. He notes while there is not a call for the vaccine on a regular basis, it is important the vaccine is available quickly in a time of need.
The hospital finished the first month of its new fiscal year $132,000 over budget.
