KHTS Radio Santa Clarita Radio – Santa Clarita News
Hospital officials welcomed the community for a groundbreaking ceremony and the new patient tower at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital on Wednesday.
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The $151 million project is a part of the hospital’s master plan, which was developed to help meet the growing healthcare needs in the community. The tower will be able to meet the demand of private rooms, bathrooms and additional surgery space.
“The facility, as you know, is why we’re here, to make our city even better,” said Roger Seaver, president and CEO of the hospital. “It’ll be a place in a time of need or a time of celebration.”
The patient tower is designed to be six stories, 160,000 square feet with enough space to include all of the planned features. The tower will provide 142 patient beds and two new surgery suites in the women’s services unit of the hospital.
Get live news updates about Santa Clarita by following KHTS on Facebook and KHTS on TwitterOther features of the tower will include expanded laboratory services and management services, a rooftop helipad with direct access to the Emergency Department, a new, larger cafeteria, and a central atrium to better accommodate patients, staff and volunteers.
“This is a major investment in the infrastructure of this valley,” said Seaver before explaining that a “normal life” of a building of this stature would be able to last about 50 years. “Well take care of 10,000 people per year, average three day length of stay in this tower, and over the course of the years that’s hundreds of thousands of people that get care over the next 50 years…it’s part of the perpetuity of this hospital and the permanent investment in this community for you, for you and your family, and the people that come after you and serve this valley well and be served well by an outstanding health care team in modern facilities.”
The patient tower is scheduled to open to the public in 2019, pending state licensing.
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Behind all the silver-tipped shovels in this ceremony is an ongoing battle being fought by your physicians and nurses in providing healthcare to our community.
Certainly, expanding our hospital with increased beds and services must be attained, and not one of my doctor colleagues nor nurses would deny this. But the quality of care and the ongoing financial assault by the administration and Board of Directors against patients, especially our elder seniors, continues.
At our hospital, many medical professionals are on the frontline of patient care, and are your eyes and ears to scrutinize this care. We are the backbone of the hospital and strive to provide the best care we can. But medical decision-making is now in the hands of businesspeople, so you must be leery of their personal goals and motivations.
Ignoring the voice of committed and dedicated doctors and nurses will only allow a new tower to be built mirroring the substandard care now being provided in the old building. Our hospital is not perfect, so please listen to the muzzled warriors warning you of the ongoing decline in care some our patients now receive.
Aggrandizing their feats in this ceremony should be matched by providing the medical care our patients from this community deserve.
Gene Uzawa Dorio, M.D.
We met a few times over the state of my husband’s care. After an error at Henry Mayo, there was a settlement last summer on a “wrongful death” lawsuit. This, however, was only the beginning of the horrors that followed as he was chucked from one nursing home after another. Long story short, I am writing an “expose” on nursing home and Medicare abuse, and the importance of having an ADVANCED HEALTHCARE DIRECTIVE in place. If I encounter medical questions may I count on your help?