Opening, at last
By Steve Herring
Published in News on November 5, 2015 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/MELISSA KEY
State officials say that the new $93 million Cherry Hospital will open by the end of the year and that the addition of nearly 400 new staff members will have a significant economic impact on the area. The opening is three years behind schedule, mainly because of problems with the original electrical subcontractor as well as several bomb threats.
The new $93 million Cherry Hospital is expected to open by the end of the year -- some three years past its original projected opening date.
But while state Department of Health and Human Services officials acknowledge the delay has been painful, they prefer to focus on how patients, as well as staff, will benefit from the move from the 1950s-era campus to a state-of-the-art psychiatric facility.
They also point out that the addition of 373 employees will have a significant economic impact on Goldsboro and Wayne County.
"This is going to have an economic impact on Goldsboro," said Cherry Hospital CEO Luckey Welch. "Think about the $16 million to $20 million worth of employees that will be moving money through this community because 90 some percent of them live right here.
"Some of these are good employees as far as income. This is a great impact to the city of Goldsboro and Wayne County at large."
Construction on the three-story, 410,000-square-foot psychiatric facility, located next to the State Employees Credit Union on West Ash Street, began in 2010.
It includes a 316-bed facility housing residential patient care units, therapy and medical facilities and administrative offices.
The hospital currently has 380,000 square feet spread across four different buildings.
"These patients, on a fairly routine basis, we have to take them out for care," Welch said. "For instance, if they need dental care, they have to go to another building. If they need physical therapy, they go to another building. If they need an X-ray, they go to another building, for recreation to another building.
"That is rain, sleet to wherever it is. We either walk there or we take them in a van. So we are working in a very old designed psychiatric hospital, and we are getting ready to move into one of the most modern psychiatric facilities in this nation. It is pretty much on the same footprint as the one in Butner, N.C., a regional hospital."
Another such facility is being built in Morganton, he said.
"This state is investing in three state-of-the-art psychiatric hospitals for North Carolinians, which I will tell you is the envy of the nation," he said. "No one else is doing this but North Carolina. Everything is under one roof. It will be more safe, more secure. It is going to be a wonderful environment for our patients. It's pleasing. It is uplifting not only for patients, but our staff."
Bomb threats halted construction on several occasions, but the main thing that contributed to the three-year delay was a problem with the original electrical subcontractor, said Luke Hoff, DHHS director of property and construction.
"But we are continuing to work with the (general) contractor to get this building open," he said. "That is what we are focused on right now. The main thing was the original electrical subcontractor got behind schedule, and unfortunately the general contractor had to default them. That had a significant ripple effect on all of the other subcontractors. That is really the main contributing factor to this project (being delayed).
"We worked through that and continued to work with the contractor, and we have been continuing to work as a team with the contractor, with the design team and now with the state construction office, to focus on getting this building open as soon as possible."
The delay did not add to the project cost, Welch noted.
"It is not desirable to have any project this far behind," Hoff said. "I don't know percent-wise how many projects fall behind by this amount of time. All I can say is that it is unfortunate, and we are all continuing to work together to get it opened up as soon as possible.
"We are starting to work with the state construction office on inspections. Depending on how that goes, we are hopeful that things are going to go well, but we are looking (to open) at the end of the calendar year. By the end of December we should have final acceptance if the inspections go well."
Once the state gets final acceptance of the building from the contractor there is a detailed 12-week plan to train and educate 1,000 employees to move from a building that was designed in the 1950s to a new modern psychiatric hospital, Welch said.
"Keep in mind we have to keep this hospital running, caring for 183 patients today while we are moving slowly and precisely and training, setting up new offices," he said. "Every office, every person will have a new space, and we have to plan methodically how to do that safely giving them time to do that.
"So we have worked on this internally for a good while. We have submitted it up to the department (DHHS) which they understand the complexity of moving whole cloth from one hospital into another while operating one."
The real purpose of the plan is that on the day patients are moved that staff members will know they can provide safe, quality care on the first day for each and every patient, Welch said.
"It is a big undertaking," he said. "We have a great staff here, great clinical people, and our people are excited about moving into this new space. It is a great, great hospital. The interesting thing about that is most of the beds that we are increasing are admissions beds.
"Today we have 93 to 95 percent occupancy, which is really high for a hospital. Most hospitals don't run that high. Therefore when we add these 117 beds about 90 or 100 of those are admission beds. So that is important that we grow for the community. But I hasten to add that the first day that we move in we do not have the staff to cover those other 117 beds."
DHHS is assisting the hospital in putting together a team to help with recruitment of physicians, psychologists, social workers, nurses and health care techs.
All of the support staff will have to be increased as well.
"Our budget increases by 373 positions," Welch said. "Now we roughly have a little less than a thousand employees. We will go to 1,400 employees roughly when we are fully occupied. But the challenge for us is to be sure that we bring in competent good people, we do in a way that we can add to the census of this building safely as we recruit.
"So to give you an exact time when we will be a 317-bed hospital would depend on recruitment and availability, and as you well know we compete with all of the medical centers around here and around the country. Psychiatrists for instance are in the top five professions in medicine that are difficult to recruit. Then the nursing shortage is everywhere. We have a challenge. But we will meet that challenge. We will get there."