The Salem Township Hospital Board has passed its fiscal year budget that begins April first. Hospital CEO James Timpe says the budget is balanced and includes $3-million in net income of which $2-million will be reinvested in capital improvements.
“Next year’s budget is challenging, but it’s still a positive budget for us, which is great,” Timpe said. “As we see throughout healthcare right now, expenses are going up. It’s challenging to find staffing all throughout healthcare, physician fees, that kind of thing. Of course, everyone’s worried about what impact there could be from changes in government health insurance. Otherwise, it’s looking positive and we’re right on track for next year, so we are thrilled.”
Timpe also announced good progress is being made on demolition for the new emergency room and operating room.
“They cleared out what used to be the RHC area on the first floor. They came yesterday and did a 3D scan of the area because being built in 1942 there’s been a lot of things run through there over the years, so they needed to get a better look at what was going on down there. With that information, we’ll finalize our plans. We’ve already picked out materials and equipment and everything. That will go out for bid in June, and we would expect construction to start in full in July. That will be a phased approach where different areas shut down at different times and move.”
Timpe was concerned about surprises being found in the demolition of the oldest part of the hospital.
“The only surprise was how many posts are holding this hospital up. There might be a little more than they thought. They’re going to configure the rooms that are going into that space. Those are rooms for pre-surgery, small exam type rooms. They’ll just move the walls accordingly so that the posts end up inside the walls.”
The project also includes a 2,500 square foot addition to the rear of the hospital near the Broughton and North College Street intersection for the expanded surgery department which will go from two to four operating rooms. The number of emergency room beds will increase from four to six. The project is still on target to be completed in the fall of next year.
