MACON, MO -- Expansion of a major hospital is underway in Macon. Samaritan Hospital broke ground on Thursday for their new $20 million patient care facility. CEO Bern Orman says the expansion has been in the talks since 2005. However, the entire process may not have ever taken place if it weren’t for one item on the agenda.
“One of the things I wanted when we started this project is if we can’t have private rooms for our patients, which is where we should be, then I really didn’t want to do the project” said Orman. “So we’ll have 25 private patient rooms on the second floor of the new building.”
In addition to the 25 patient rooms, there will be a new nursing station, surgical suits, emergency room, radiology, laboratory, pharmacy, social services and admitting.
“We hope that it benefits Macon as well” said Orman. “We know spending $20 million here to build a facility would be turnover in the community many times. Some local contractors will be part of the project and there’ll be people like store owners here locally that will see some increase in business because of things bought locally.”
The funding for the 53,000 sq. ft. facility and renovations to the current facility was made possible through the partnership of the USDA Rural Development, Macon-Atlanta State Bank and Samaritan Hospital.
Murray Company from Kansas City is the general contractor for the expansion.
Orman said construction is expected to be completed in June 2012. Renovations to the current building are anticipated to be complete in the summer 2012.
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