Hospital ready for patients
REDSTONE TWP. – After three days of inspection, Brownsville Tri-County Hospital received its General Acute Care Hospital license and opened to patients Thursday. “I think everyone’s going to be impressed with the new Brownsville Tri-County Hospital,” said Rick Adobato, director of operations for Fayette EMS, one of the ambulance services that uses the hospital.
Adobato was on hand Thursday morning when hospital board President Frank Ricco hung the hospital license on the wall and addressed the staff.
“It felt really good,” Adobato said.
Brownsville General Hospital had functioned as a community nonprofit hospital since the early 1900s, but ran into financial difficulties. The nonprofit board of directors received permission from Fayette County Orphans Court to sell the hospital to a for-profit group, Brownville General Hospital Inc., in March 2005. The medical facility that was then known as Tara Hospital at Brownsville closed in January 2006, just nine months after being bought by the for-profit group. The for-profit group surrendered the hospital license and declared bankruptcy. The hospital’s equipment and furniture was sold at auction a few months later and the former nonprofit board of directors bought back what it could to start the process of rebuilding the hospital.
“It took a lot of hard work and due diligence. He had to believe it could happen. We started in January 2006, right after it closed. We knew the area needed a hospital and we wanted to get it open as soon as possible,” said Ricco.
Over the past two years, more then $2 million has been invested in the building, bringing it up to the current building codes. Because the hospital is opening under a new license, new policies had to be drafted and approved by the state Department of Health and the hospital had to comply with all current regulations. There is new, state-of-the-art equipment throughout the hospital. The emergency room is now open 24 hours a day and the hospital is able to admit patients to its 21-bed acute care wing that includes six telemetry-monitored beds.
The hospital also offers am 18-bed adult behavioral health unit, speech, occupational and physical therapy, nutritional services and a kitchen and cafeteria.
According to Ricco, there are nearly 100 employees at the hospital.
“Eighty percent are former employees, which is a tremendous number, as far as I’m concerned,” Ricco said.
There are 24 doctors on staff in various specialties, many of whom had previously been on staff with the hospital.
Ricco said more have committed to returning to the hospital.
“The hurdles are done, we’re open,” Ricco said.
There had been no admissions to the hospital as of Thursday afternoon, but Ricco said the laboratory had been busy. The lab will be open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays, Ricco said.
Rich Lenk, the supervisor of operations for Brownsville Ambulance Service Inc., said the reopening of the hospital will significantly improve access to medical care for area residents.
“It takes us five minutes to get to that hospital. As soon as we drop the patient off, we’re available,’ Lenk said. “Sometimes when we went to Uniontown, Washington or Mon Valley, we were out of service for two hours before we were available again. When all the ambulances in the area were doing that, it was a problem.”
Adobato said that in addition to improved patient care by decreasing the time it takes to get to a hospital, the reopening of the hospital also means reduced expenses for the ambulance services because they won’t have to drive as far.
“With the price of fuel, it’s actually going to save us money. We aren’t going to have to run to Uniontown or Mon Valley,” Adobato said.
Ricco said the opening of the hospital is important to him.
“We worked hard because the people needed a hospital here. We’d had a hospital here since the turn of the century. Sometimes 10 miles is the difference between life and death,” Ricco said.
An open house is planned for the hospital in a month or so, Ricco said.
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